CPO Rising’s Technology Round-Up Series returns today with fresh supply management technology news and updates covering a few recent major announcements. If you are a sourcing, procurement, or spend management solution provider and you are continually innovating the way that procurement and supply chain leaders and practitioners drive value, we’d love to hear from you. Please drop us a note at info at cporising dot com. Thanks, and enjoy!

Ivalua Supercharges Procurement with the Power of Generative AI

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Ivalua, a global leader in spend management, announced a new generative AI offering built into the Ivalua platform. An Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) powered by Generative AI enables customers to improve efficiency and enable faster, more effective decision-making regarding their suppliers, contracts, and spend.

The company stated that IVA is a procurement productivity game-changer powered by Generative AI. Seamlessly integrating into daily procurement operations, IVA empowers teams to redirect their focus toward strategic initiatives, supercharging productivity. IVA is designed safely and securely to protect customer data.

According to Pascal Bensoussan, chief product officer at Ivalua, “We’re incredibly excited to unveil IVA powered by Gen AI. Procurement teams are inundated with a growing set of responsibilities but without additional support resources,” he said.

“Gen AI has the potential to significantly impact procurement and accelerate various activities within the Source-to-Pay process, freeing up time for more strategic focus. We strongly believe that by putting this technology in the hands of our customers and partners to build their own Gen AI powered use cases, we will co-innovate faster and better,” Bensoussan added.

IVA Powered by Generative AI already offers the following out-of-the-box capabilities:

• Supplier Research: Find and gather relevant information on existing or new suppliers and their offerings and enrich their profiles.
• Category & Market Insights: Conduct specific research and summarize key trends within your category within seconds.
• Legal Assistant: Create an instant contract summary or draft a clause to ensure specific elements are covered.
• RFP Assistant: Leverage best practices to articulate and share the objective, timeline, success criteria, and selection process of your next sourcing event with all invited suppliers.
• Enhanced Communications: Get instant help creating/proofreading supplier communications and sourcing invitations.
• Generate Improvement Plans: Review supplier performance responses, summarize, and suggest appropriate actions within a structured improvement plan.

Read the full announcement here.

Aavenir Elevates Sourcing and Contracting with New Generative AI Capabilities on ServiceNow

MCKINNEY, Texas — Aavenir, a leader in connected contract management solutions on the ServiceNow platform, announced a series of groundbreaking enhancements to its flagship solutions, Aavenir Contractflow and Aavenir RFPflow, set to reshape the Source-to-Contract landscape.

The company stated that Aavenir Contractflow, harnessing the power of Generative AI, provides comprehensive insights into contractual deviations, facilitating risk mitigation, and ensuring contract compliance, while the enhancements in Aavenir RFPflow deliver substantial cost savings through the introduction of flexible and advanced pricing comparison and analysis.

According to Sunil Masand, senior vice president of product for Aavenir, “Aavenir possesses the capability to not only solve for today’s CLM use cases with our proprietary and accurate AI models but also continuously enhance their precision to solve for legal and procurement use cases of tomorrow — a unique advantage that will set us apart from the majority of CLM providers.”

Read the full announcement here.

Payhawk Brings P2P to Its Spend Management Platform

LONDON — Payhawk, a global spend management platform, announced the launch of its new purchase orders system. The solution streamlines procurement operations by integrating purchase requests, approvals, purchase order creation, three-way matching, and the ability to pay in local or cross-border transfers in one seamless platform.

The company stated this cohesive solution eliminates the time spent on manual data entry and approvals, reduces errors, duplicate payments, and unnecessary costs, while providing an overview of committed spend, reinforcing Payhawk’s commitment to optimizing business spend management.

According to Hristo Borisov, CEO and co-founder of Payhawk, “Payhawk’s vision has always been to simplify and streamline our customers’ financial operations. With the introduction of our Procure-to-Pay solution, we’re further optimizing our customer’s experience of the Payhawk platform,” he said.

“This solution, coupled with our free local transfers and the most competitive FX rates for International Business Payments with Wise Platform, enhances our automated accounts payable offerings. It’s about giving businesses the tools they need to manage their spend more effectively, reducing errors and saving valuable time. It’s more than just a new feature, but a testament to our commitment to driving the future of spend management,” Borisov adds.

Read the full announcement here.

Order.co Enhances Spend Management Solution with SSO

NEW YORK — Order.co, a leading spend management software solution, launched its new single sign-on (SSO) integrations. This development bolsters user authentication, enhances security, and streamlines access management for organizations of all sizes.

The company stated that its new SSO integration offers enhanced functionality for spend management including:

• Heightened Financial Security: Managing user access to software with financial implications, such as purchasing and payments functionality, is paramount for security.
• Simplified Access Management: SSO simplifies access management by allowing organizations to revoke user access through their IdP.
• Enhanced User Experience: SSO enhances the overall user experience by eliminating the need for individuals to remember multiple logins and passwords.

According to Sarah Bergeron, senior director of customer success, “We are so excited for Order.co to now offer SSO to comply with our customers’ various security requirements.

“Our SSO eliminates the need for users to enter passwords to access Order.co repeatedly, and removes vulnerability if or when our customers’ users leave their organization, assuring that access to purchasing products and services is tightly controlled,” Bergeron added.

Read the full announcement here.

ServiceNow Announces a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — ServiceNow, a leading digital workflow company, announced a five‑year strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Beginning early 2024, the ServiceNow platform and full suite of solutions will be available as a Software‑as‑a‑Service (Saas) offering in the AWS Marketplace.

The company stated that the companies will also co-develop and launch industry‑specific, AI‑powered business applications to host on AWS and list in AWS Marketplace to add intelligence to critical business workflows. The collaboration will allow joint customers to benefit from new ways to purchase and use ServiceNow solutions. The scalability and reach of AWS combined with ServiceNow’s intelligent platform for end‑to‑end digital transformation, will help customers optimize performance, maintain agility, and provide a more flexible and efficient environment for infrastructure management

According to Paul Fipps, president of strategic accounts at ServiceNow, “By entering into an SCA with AWS, we’re taking another major step in accelerating end‑to‑end business transformation,” he said.

“Our new SaaS platform on AWS and our co‑developed solutions are an integral part of our efforts to help customers put AI to work for their business. We are thrilled to bring together AWS’s leading cloud capabilities, the power of the ServiceNow platform as well as our leadership and innovation in cloud computing, generative AI, and machine learning,” Fipps added.

Read the full announcement here.

In Other News

SpendHQ Recognized as Deal of the Year Pioneer

Corcentric Names Tom Spencer SVP and Head of AP Solutions

Tagged in: Artificial Intelligence, Chief Procurement Officer, CPO, P2P, Procurement, Solution Providers, Spend Under Management, Tech Round-Up, Technology