Spend Management Competition Rises

E-business software and services company FreeMarkets, continuing to make rival
Ariba work hard for its money, launched a new spend management solution that
combines analysis with data collection, cleansing and enhancement services.

The Pittsburgh, Pa.-based company said the new ASP
product is called the FreeMarkets Spend Visibility Solution. It was
engineered to provide client companies with a view of their global spending
and let them design, execute and measure the effectiveness of spend
management strategies.

The move creates even more competition for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ariba , which last February launched its Spend Management Suite,
an integrated solution for analysis, sourcing and procurement.

Ariba also faces competition from Mountain View, Calif.-based e-procurement
software maker Market Mile, which recently
acquired spend analysis solutions firm Aentropy, based in Menlo Park,
Calif.

Spend data is often spread across multiple systems that are neither connected
nor integrated, with many different users entering information in an
unsystematic, non-standardized manner – hence the market for applications in
this area.

FreeMarkets said its Spend Visibility Solution allows companies to gain a
consolidated view of their global spending and perform actionable analyses in
a repeatable, cost-effective manner.

Features include the ability to standardize and validate spend data
regardless of the source; segment, scrub and store this data in a central
location; analyze it to enhance processes, structure and execute spend
management strategies; and measure their effectiveness.

The hosted solution updates and re-cleanses spend data to maintain a
consistently clear and accurate view of information and generates a variety
of reports and analysis to support spend decisions and strategies, the
company said.