IDC MarketScape

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled

Buy-Side Contract Life-Cycle Management Applications
2021 Vendor Assessment
Mickey North Rizza

THIS IDC MARKETSCAPE EXCERPT FEATURES ORACLE

IDC MARKETSCAPE FIGURE

FIGURE 1

IDC MarketScape Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Buy-Side Contract Life-Cycle

Management Applications Vendor Assessment

Source: IDC, 2021

February 2021, IDC #US45016019e

Please see the Appendix for detailed methodology, market definition, and scoring criteria.

IN THIS EXCERPT

The content for this excerpt was taken directly from IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-
Enabled Buy-Side Contract Life-Cycle Management Applications 2021 Vendor Assessment (Doc #
US45016019). All or parts of the following sections are included in this excerpt: IDC Opinion, IDC
MarketScape Vendor Inclusion Criteria, Essential Guidance, Vendor Summary Profile, Appendix and
Learn More. Also included is Figure 1.

IDC OPINION

The Rise of the Digital Enterprise

Growth in the digital economy is reshaping how business is done at a fundamental level. IDC believes
there will be double-digit growth of 15.5% CAGR through 2023 in digital transformation to at least $6.8
trillion of direct digital transformation investment by organizations. This transformation is impacting the
business at every level including business workflows, internal compliance processes, and software
demands. In many ways, the enterprise is becoming a different species when compared with previous
iterations. This digital enterprise uses modern modular software and its properties of automation,
connectivity, flexible services, and visibility to drive competitive advantage. As a result, the digital
enterprise has different expectations for its software and, more importantly, its software vendors. This
change can be seen starkly in the way digital enterprises buy software. A few of the key characteristics
of the new digital enterprise buyer are:

▪ Decision features more voices. IDG's 2019 Role and Influence of the Technology Decision-
Maker Survey reveals that on average there are more than 20 influencers driving the final
software buying decision. This includes a mix of IT and line-of-business employees.
▪ Procurement, as the line of business, has greater influence. Over the past decade, the line-of-
business employee has gained a greater share of the overall software buying budget. The line-
of-business users exert greater influence within the buying process because of their overall
knowledge of the business requirements. In this case, procurement professionals understand
they need technology that not only embraces the entire procurement business process but
also brings greater business value, actionable insights, and improved performance with better
outcomes.
▪ CIOs are prioritizing innovation. The role of IT and the CIO within the digital enterprise is not
diminishing. In fact, the role of the CIO is more critical within the digital enterprise as the CIO is
now considered a key driver of innovation within the company. As technology advancements
are used to create competitive advantage, the CIO's new role is focused on driving the digital
agenda for the digital enterprise.
▪ Millennial workers are becoming buyers. Today, millennials represent a rapidly growing
percentage of organizations. The millennial workers (the oldest of which is 40 this year) are
becoming a greater percentage of corporate management teams and are exerting increasing
influence in the buying process. The millennial workers are partial to consumerlike
experiences in their software, use of mobile technologies for every transaction, and
information gathering, and they are more collaborative than previous generations.
▪ COVID-19 increased the need for digital. IDC calls this technology parity, such that all workers
have secure access to the resources required to do their jobs, no matter their preferred device

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or location. Procurement professionals need to have access to their workflows regardless of
location and this means mobile to computer abilities. IDC's 2020 COVID-19 Impact on IT
Spending Survey (conducted August 5–17) finds organizations are investing in team
collaboration sites, device security and management, office productivity, health apps,
upgrades to existing devices, enterprise communities, eSignature software, VPN access to
applications, virtualized access to on-premises applications, and mobile/cellular connectivity.

The Digital Procurement Difference

Businesses are investing in new procurement technology as they move toward a true digital business.
Digital procurement enables the business to become digital in its procurement processes and with its
partnerships with suppliers. The focus is shifted from semiautomated and integrated workflows to
digital procurement programs that encompass intelligent sourcing, generative supplier relationship
management, cognitive risk and quality management, iterative innovation, intelligent cost optimization,
intelligent contracts, and intelligent procurement and supply planning. This focus shifts mean an
organization is much more efficient and productive and proactively meeting the business needs both in
the procurement professional's overall organizational role and in its relations with the partners and
suppliers.

These digital transformation procurement use cases embodied within the aforesaid programs enable
the procurement organization to move to digital procurement quickly; however, technology vendors are
currently able to fill in only some of the business processes and tasks within these procurement
programs. We expect more innovation as the technology vendors play catch-up and then surpass the
buyer's expectations in the next few years. COVID-19 has been the tipping point to accelerated
innovation for procurement vendors to innovate faster; however, much still needs to be done. Our most
recent procurement digital transformation research finds increased importance being attributed to
proactive spend management and risk analysis, touchless procure to pay, and continuous contract
compliance and analysis during 2020 and 2021.

At the heart of contract life-cycle management systems is the core internal system of record for
contract management including spend, suppliers, sourcing, and risk management. These systems of
record have moved beyond their monolithic system state of old toward modular solutions that can be
harnessed to bring greater value for procurement. The rapidly increasing pace of global business, the
impact of digital transformation, the expanding volume of business data, and advancement of the 3rd
Platform and innovation accelerators have added more to the procurement systems, making them
much more modular and requiring procurement systems to be deployed differently to realize benefits
faster. Cloud-deployed procurement applications are answering the call of this complexity and are the
de facto option for deploying procurement technology for many organizations. Artificial intelligence
(AI), machine learning (ML), natural language processing, assistive user interfaces (UIs), and
advanced analytics coupled with curated data sets are advancing cloud procurement to become a
digital procurement and partnership technology. These intelligent applications are the new assets
enterprises want because they enable more employee insights by automating transactions that were
previously stalled and even bringing more data into the equation so organizations can make better
decisions immediately. This evolution is driving enterprise users to choose technology solutions with
the following characteristics:

▪ Greater intelligence: Intelligence within procurement software comes in many forms, some of
which are already generally available, including workflow automation, conversational user
interfaces, chatbots, and intelligent analytics, coupled with curated data sets. When taken
together, intelligent workflows save time, increase operational efficiency and, more
importantly, add a layer of big data analysis that human beings simply cannot duplicate.

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▪ More predictive features: Organizations need to look at history and historical markers within
the business, from customers and employees and suppliers that are in demand to project
timelines, contract compliance, and financial analysis. However, history isn't always the same;
so when you add in predictive analytics to these data sets and a multitude of other data sets
from news to weather to supplier risk, the modeling and predicting of the business scenarios
enable an organization to make more accurate and timely decisions. Predictive aspects allow
an organization to be more agile and react to changing business demands.
▪ Better data visualization: Every function within an organization often must sift through a
tremendous amount of data to find key insights. Visualization tools help employees analyze
data more efficiently. Visualization tools are essential for employees to quickly see the "story"
behind the data. However, the volume and the number of sources of relevant business data
continue to grow as does the demand from procurement software end users to have better
data visualization tools.
▪ Highly flexible reporting: Many end users still struggle with reporting. Timely reporting and
accurate analysis are essential to maintain business visibility and an agile business. However,
too many organizations are stuck with limited functionality and little flexibility related to
reporting and analysis. Bringing in more procurement workflows and artificial intelligence
capabilities allows employees to save valuable time and to dive deeper into the data to reveal
value-added insights that make reporting much easier.
▪ Robust data security: IDC's most recent SaaSPath Survey of over 2,000 survey respondents
reveals organizations purchasing procurement applications find that the most important
attribute when evaluating procurement technology vendors is robust data security.
Considering procurement is a major touch point into the spend of an organization and also the
supplier relationship management side, organizations know data security is of utmost
importance.
▪ Value for the price paid: IDC's SaaSPath Survey of over 2,000 survey respondents reveals
that for organizations focused on procurement, the second most important attribute when
evaluating these technology vendors is value for the price paid. Many organizations were
interviewed for this IDC MarketScape series and quite a few references noted that they were
tired of multiple solutions encompassing the entire procurement business processes. They felt
the value they received for the price they paid was not equivalent to what they were using.
This characteristic itself is a notice to procurement technology vendors that it is no longer
about digitizing and solving a business problem within one or two areas of procurement, but
rather about the ability of procurement applications to do much more than expected.
▪ Suite versus best of breed: In addition to a trusted brand, IDC's recent SaaSPath Survey of
over 2,000 survey respondents reveals 79% of organizations would rather purchase
procurement applications as part of an overall suite versus 12% that would rather purchase
their procurement applications from best-of-breed vendors. 9% of respondents had no
preference. The important point here is procurement understands it is not just a siloed
department — it is a functional group that requires data and business processes that cut across
the entire organization. IDC expects more best-of-breed procurement solutions to continue to
grow their significance with added functionality in finance, treasury, networks, manufacturing,
and within the business commerce aspects.

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IDC MARKETSCAPE VENDOR INCLUSION CRITERIA

The vendor inclusion list for this document was selected to accurately depict the vendors that are most
representative of any given contract life-cycle management applications on a buyer's selection list
based on the following:

▪ Vendors were investigated to ensure that their offerings were qualified as "SaaS" or "cloud
enabled" and that the vendor had won recent deals within the relevant customer segment.
▪ Contract life-cycle management software must meet the IDC definition as noted in the
Procurement Applications section. And this IDC MarketScape is focused on the buy-side
technologies.
▪ Vendors must have contract life-cycle management technology that encompasses the buy-
side of contract management including contract authoring and creation, collaboration and
version control, approval routing and search capabilities, electronic signature, and monitoring,
repository, and also intelligent contract management workflow. These contract life-cycle
management capabilities, from the buy-side, are the main focus in this IDC MarketScape
document.
▪ Vendors were asked about their innovation in the areas of robotic process automation (RPA),
machine learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing, conversational UIs, and
virtual assistants/chatbots. Vendors were also asked about their intelligent workflows from
every aspect possible supporting all of contract life-cycle management.
▪ Incoming IDC inquiries are related to buy-side contract life-cycle management solutions, with
specific questions focused on capabilities of vendors, innovation and future trends of these
vendors, customer interviews, customer satisfaction, and metrics organizations improved as a
result of their use of the procurement software.
▪ Vendors were asked to name which other vendors they most often compete against in deals.

ADVICE FOR TECHNOLOGY BUYERS

Contract life-cycle management is now front and center of helping organizations survive with business
continuity, cost optimization, and business resiliency. Procurement needs a buy-side contract life-cycle
management system that can grow with the business and this can be a daunting task, especially as
you sift through the many procurement applications available on the market. There is a stunning
amount of variety and hundreds of options among software packages specifically targeting
procurement organizations. Following are a few key steps in the journey to select the right fit among
the myriad of software vendors:

▪ Understand your needs: Before you choose your buy-side contract life-cycle management
vendor and product, you should first take the opportunity to do some self-reflection. A few key
questions to ask regarding the internal factors involved in choosing software are:
▪ What is my plan for growing my business?
▪ How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed or restructured my business?
▪ What features do I consider essential for my business, now and in the future?
▪ Are there industry-specific service considerations for my software selection?
▪ Are there new innovations that will make my employees' work life easier and more
balanced?

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▪ How many users will interact with the software within the business?
▪ Will we use IT to support the business?
▪ How much am I willing to spend on the software?
▪ How defined are my processes, or am I looking to improve them by leveraging best
practice processes?
▪ Can I track procurement projects? Budgets to actuals? Savings? Supplier and buyer
innovative value? How does all that procurement does tie into finance and its
requirements?
▪ Are we planning on any mergers and acquisitions in the next few years, and how will this
impact our procurement needs?
▪ What are the deployment models we are using now and are we planning on shifting?
▪ Which providers offer the deployment models we need?
▪ Do your research: With so many options, organizations must take a systematic approach
researching and vetting these software packages. Organizations should consider tapping into
the vast web of software evaluation options including market research firms, online review
sites, and industry associations. A few key questions to ask when researching the software
are:
▪ Does the software come with a free trial?
▪ How do I buy the software? Whom do I buy it from?
▪ Whom can I consult with on this matter? My team? Other business owners? Investors?
▪ How long does it take to implement the software? How quickly can I start using the
product?
▪ Does the software have positive reviews?
▪ What level of customer service is offered?
▪ Do I need an outside consultant to help me install the software and bring it to use? Is there
self-training available for our team?
▪ What type of in-house IT resources do I need to have available, if any? Or am I reducing
my internal resource and datacenter dependencies by moving to the cloud?
▪ Look to the future: Many organizations may find themselves growing rapidly. In these cases,
the software must be able to grow with your business. And in the case of a pandemic, a
business may need to slow down too, so organizational agility is critical when purchasing
software. A few key questions to ask when considering the growth aspect of choosing a
software package are:
▪ What factors will speed up or slow down my growth plans?
▪ How fast will the business likely grow?
▪ What if my business slows or stalls — how do I curtail my usage costs?
▪ Will the business be selling to/interacting with businesses/customers in other regions or
countries?
▪ What kinds of reporting and insights will I need to manage the business as I grow? Can
the software provide them?
▪ Does the software vendor have innovation aspects that will make my business run
smoother?
▪ What does the software vendor's road map look like for this product?

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▪ What is the software vendor's financial viability for the long haul?
▪ Will I add subordinate business units/divisions/franchises?
▪ How will the software interact within my organization and externally with suppliers?
This IDC MarketScape vendor assessment assists in answering the aforementioned questions and
others. The goal of this document is to provide potential software customers with a list of buy-side
contract life-cycle management software companies that have taken great strides to incorporate the
previously listed capabilities. We have profiled and assessed the vendors' capabilities to support the
complicated area of buy-side contract life-cycle management software.

VENDOR SUMMARY PROFILES

This section briefly explains IDC's key observations resulting in a vendor's position in the IDC
MarketScape. While every vendor is evaluated against each of the criteria outlined in the Appendix,
the description here provides a summary of each vendor's strengths and challenges.

Oracle
After a thorough evaluation of Oracle's offerings and strategy, IDC has positioned the company in the
Leaders category of this 2021 buy-side contract life-cycle management IDC MarketScape.

Oracle is a software, hardware, and services provider headquartered in Austin, Texas, the United
States. Founded in 1977, the company has more than 135,000 employees globally. Oracle reports
more than 430,000 customers and deployments in more than 175 countries.

Oracle's Procurement Cloud is designed to streamline the source-to-settle process through automation
and social collaboration to help organizations modernize the procurement process and control costs.

Strengths
▪ Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) and Oracle Procurement and Spend
Analytics provide a set of pre-seeded yet fully customizable reports and tools that users can
use to create, share, and analyze information. There are over 250 out-of-the-box reports and
alerts across spend analysis, procurement performance, and supplier information with
drilldown capabilities from the summary level to the individual supporting transactions. End
users can create new reports or analysis using drag-and-drop capabilities without needing to
understand data structures or queries.
▪ Oracle has machine learning–based intelligent document recognition, which enables touchless
transaction processing for supplier invoices, customer remittance advices, and expense
receipts. Duplicate invoices and payments are automatically identified and eliminated to
prevent fraud.
▪ Oracle offers a modernized Oracle Partner Network, which is a customer-focused, cloud-first
modern partner program that accelerates the transition to cloud — driving customer experience
and business outcomes. Oracle's partner strategy allows the partners to leverage Oracle
Platform as a Service to develop, deploy, and scale applications in the cloud and allows
partners to publish innovative applications that extend Oracle Cloud Applications on Oracle
Cloud Marketplace allowing a reach to more than 430,000 Oracle customers worldwide.

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Challenges
▪ Oracle provides tier-level customer support satisfaction, though two references noted its
customer support has not been stellar. Both references noted they have not told Oracle of their
concerns but will as they review the new product road map with Oracle.
▪ Though not specifically built out for many supplier and procurement workflows, Oracle does
offer natural language processing and chatbots with both Oracle Digital Assistant and Oracle
Analytics to allow casual interactions including searching documents via REST services and
processing information.
▪ References noted the product is well developed and syncs well with the other systems, though
sometimes they don't have enough notice of all the new features and functionalities with new
releases.
Consider Oracle When
You need a cloud procurement solution that enables all aspects of spend management and supplier
management including contract management or you are using other Oracle products and wish to
augment your current solution set.

APPENDIX

Reading an IDC MarketScape Graph

For the purposes of this analysis, IDC divided potential key measures for success into two primary
categories: capabilities and strategies.

Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well
aligned the vendor is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the
company and product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a
vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market.

Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with
what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level
decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-
market plans for the next three to five years.

The size of the individual vendor markers in the IDC MarketScape represents the market share of each
individual vendor within the specific market segment being assessed.

IDC MarketScape Methodology

IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings, and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC
judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC analysts tailor the range of standard
characteristics by which vendors are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and
interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are based on user
interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of IDC experts in each market. IDC analysts base individual
vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and
interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in an effort to
provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior, and
capability.

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Market Definition
Procurement Applications
Procurement applications automate processes relating to purchasing supplies, material (whether direct
or indirect; raw, in process, or finished; as a result of or flowing into a product supply chain–specific
process; or in support of performing a service), and services (business or professional). The
procurement function covers sourcing, procurement, supplier relationship management, contract
management, savings tracking, transaction processing, and payments support, all of which are
connected to create a single view of the spending levels at an organization. As a result, purchasing
activities are integrated into a supplier community that can be easily tracked, benchmarked, and
analyzed by both buyers and suppliers.

Features of these procurement modules include self-service requisitioning, order entry, approval
workflow, transaction processing (EDI, EDI-INT, and digital), strategic sourcing, bid optimization,
dynamic pricing, commodity strategy and spot buying, and category management; supplier discovery,
management, tracking, and enforcement; catalog aggregation and syndication, supplier performance
management, and supplier information management; supplier enablement, onboarding, and portals;
and vendor-managed inventory support, invoice matching, vendor management, spend management,
dynamic discounting, supplier financing, contract management, savings tracking, and procurement
analytics.

Contract life-cycle management lies with the procurement applications definition. This document is
solely focused on the buyside of the equation. Contract life-cycle management looks at contract
authoring and creation, collaboration and version control, approval routing, repository and search
capabilities, electronic signature, monitoring, and intelligent workflow of contract management.

LEARN MORE

Related Research
▪ The New Enterprise Applications: Modern, Modular, and Transformational (IDC
#US46972420, November 2020)
▪ Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Procurement Applications, 2020 (IDC #US45754720,
September 2020)
▪ COVID-19 Impact on DX Procurement Use Case Priorities (IDC #US46765120, August 2020)
▪ IDC's Worldwide Digital Transformation Use Case Taxonomy, 2020: Procurement (IDC
#US46441320, August 2020)
▪ Worldwide Digital Transformation Investment Trends and Highlights in a COVID-19 World,
August 2020 (IDC #US46794218, August 2020)
▪ Worldwide Procurement Applications Forecast, 2020–2024: Digital Becomes the New Normal
(IDC #US45245820, June 2020)
▪ Worldwide Procurement Applications Software Market Shares, 2019: Year of Digitization and
the Cloud (IDC #US45245620, June 2020)
Synopsis
This IDC study provides an assessment of SaaS and cloud-enabled contract life-cycle management
software solutions and discusses what criteria are most important for companies to consider when
selecting a system.

©2021 IDC #US45016019e 9

"Contract life-cycle management solutions are the repository for supplier relationship management and
sourcing and procurement activities. Procurement organizations that want to utilize more intelligent
workflows, increase buy-side relationship understandings, and gain more insights quickly are updating
to more modern modular contract life-cycle management systems," says Mickey North Rizza, program
vice president, Enterprise Applications and Digital Commerce at IDC.

©2021 IDC #US45016019e 10

About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory
services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology
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achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology
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