The Spider Kills CLM Solution Providers, Risk Management May Be Next (Dr. Elouise Speaks)

Episode 4 of Dual Source Discourse drops tomorrow.

Dr. Elouise published her Q2 2024 Spider Map a few weeks ago.

This is the first time she’s completely eliminated an entire category of solution providers.

Beware: there’s a 2nd category in danger of getting wiped out next time.

During this episode, I interview Dr E about the drastic changes she’s made in her newest iteration.

There you have it—the inevitable paring down, thinning of the hear, separating the wheat from the chaff has begun, starting with Dr. Elouise Epstein’s famous spider map. Although a better term may be “significant cut,” as the good doctor has eliminated the entire category of Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions.

Here are the reasons Elouise gives for this merciful exclusion:

All Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) solutions have been dropped. She wholesale eliminated all CLM providers because of GenAI.

• Practitioners can do 90% of what they use CLM solutions for with GenAI tools like ChatGPT.
• If you have GenAI and DropBox or some SharePoint type system that stores all of your contracts, that’s all you really need at a bare minimum.
• Why waste time and money on a CLM to integrate multiple contracts across the database (contract analytics) when CLM providers have failed miserably at this?

Of course, CLM isn’t the only category on the chopping block!

Warning: Dr E is doing a deep dive into risk management solutions this quarter to see if they will be eliminated from the next iteration of her map.

Of course, I applaud the intent behind the above actions—as I am sure Michael Lamoureux will also do.

But where is the market heading?

Orchestration

Elousie predicts the following:

Dr E predicts process orchestration tools are going to build lightweight functionality for individual applications to serve as a single intersection into all the systems that procurement has.

We’re likely going to find that lightweight is good enough.

Process orchestration is going to become the most important tool in the toolbox because users will never have to leave the interface – they will be lighter weight and more intelligent.

However, is orchestration really new?

Here is an extended excerpt from my article When it comes to blockchain, AI, and algorithms for procurement, “there is nothing new under the sun!”

In my fall 2004 analyses of a study on the use of web-based applications, I made the following observation:

It is my position that a true centralization of procurement objectives requires a decentralized architecture that is based on the real-world operating attributes of all transactional stakeholders, starting at the local or regional level. In other words, your organization gains control of it’s spend environment by relinquishing centralized functional control in favor of operational efficiencies originating on the front lines.  This is the cornerstone of agent-based modeling.

In 2007, I wrote the following in Part 7 of my Dangerous Supply Chain Myths Series:

In short, a Metaprise is a synchronized versus sequential architecture (private hub) that simultaneously links or incorporates the unique operating attributes of all transactional stakeholders on a real-world, real-time basis. This is a far cry from the “near” real-time capabilities of the much-touted Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which links disparate systems or processes often referred to as the “loose coupling of services.”

In 2024 – Spydra

Our suite of high-availability APIs and Developer Tools provide a Decentralization-as-a-Service platform to enable businesses and developers to leverage the full potential of Blockchain and the Decentralized Web Infrastructure.

Based on the above, here is my advice: Stop focusing on the technology and start focusing on the solution provider’s ability to understand your CHALLENGES AND PRIORITIES and how they (the provider) can help you to SOLVE your business problems versus technology problems.

By the way, here are the results of solving business problems:

“By August 2003, a full production program was introduced and successfully tested.  (In the test case, a major public sector organization realized a 23% cost of goods savings annually over a period of several years, while simultaneously reducing the number of buyers required to manage the contract to 3 from an original 23.  Delivery performance and product quality also improved dramatically.)”

Key Takeaway: When it comes to procurement technology, there really is nothing new under the sun. The only thing that is now changing is recognizing the fundamental truth.

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