A Hot Quarter for Enterprise Software (aka B2B)
It’s earnings season and it is starting to feel a little like January of 2000 again, though on a much smaller scale. Enterprise software is hot again.
The Big Picture of B2B Commerce Software Providers-Revision 2
A few months ago, I posted a graphic display of my never-ending quest to map B2B commerce providers into their proper vertical and horizontal segments. At that time, the graphic included over 260 companies. Below, I'm attaching my latest version of the graphic which...
Chicken Little and Supply Chain Finance
Supply Chain Finance is coming! Supply Chain Finance is coming! Supply Chain Finance is coming! Many observers, including me, have been saying this for 7 years, so it is hard not to feel like Chicken Little. But I think SCF may finally be happening--at some point...
Source to Settle in Services is Hot
The first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010) ended up being about automating the source-to-settle process for catalog content, this decade seems to be about doing the same for all sorts of services. (Yes, apparently these things take a decade--though the process...
Vertical Supplier Information Management (SIM)
Horizontal Supplier Information Management gets a lot of attention from the analysts and industry pundits. There are many reports on the SIM space sponsored by the myriad of horizontal SIM vendors. Here's just one example. At this point, most of the horizontal...
Businesses Built on Big Public Data–and a free idea to make you famous (maybe rich, too).
Now that I live in the nation's capital, I've become more interested in federal procurement and federal data sources more generally. This interest has led me to a largely unheralded aspect of the Obama administration, their Open Government Initiative, which you can...
Booz & Company Jumps on the Industry in the Cloud Bandwagon
The consultants at Booz and Company who publish strategy + business magazine recently ran an article Winning Moves in 12 Industries. The gist of the article is that in 2012 the authors expect companies in various industries to try to develop new capabilities to...
The Healthcare IC Free-for-All
I've resisted writing about the Industry in the Cloud activities in healthcare, until now, for a few reasons. First, the topic is daunting. There is so much jargon and complexity that I did not want to wade into the swamp. Second, and equally important, it just...
Concur (CNQR) Conquering the Travel Vertical
Concur's announcement of its latest quarterly results reminded me of the great example they have set for other companies trying to be Industry in the Cloud (IC) providers. Concur announced that they just completed their first $100 million quarter and would finish the...
