Market Overview: ePurchasing And Contract Life-Cycle Management In 2011 To 2012

Four forces are keeping the $5 billion ePurchasing and contract life-cycle management (CLM) software markets highly competitive and dynamic. First, cloud delivery via software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a growing part of the market, reaching 41% of total vendor revenues by 2012. Second, Smart Computing is permeating the market, with embedded analytics and rich collaborative environments becoming key functions in products like CLM, services procurement, supplier risk and performance management, and of course automated spend analysis. Third, vendors with a strong vertical focus in several cases have outperformed the overall market, while many other vendors are concentrating on several vertical industries. Fourth, the activity of exchanging critical work objects like purchase orders (POs), invoices and contracts, and necessary business information is raising the importance and value to vendors of networks for connecting buyers and suppliers together. Vendors that want to succeed in these dynamic markets need to understand these forces and how they are shaping the competitive landscape.