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    The Lowdown on the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites

    The Lowdown on the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites

    It’s that time of year again. Gartner has just released the <2021 Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites. Quite an exciting time for many in the procurement industry, including those of us at JAGGAER. We have been named a Leader in this Magic Quadrant for the fourth straight year, which is something we are quite proud of. While many of you reading this are familiar with the Gartner reports, specifically the Magic Quadrants, there are undoubtedly those who aren’t. So, here’s our quick guide to what a Magic Quadrant is, Gartner evaluation process, and what we believe being named a Leader in procure-to-pay really means.

    Why should you care what Gartner says?

    Per Gartner’s site, they employs subject matter experts (analysts) with practitioner experience across a variety of industries, with a focus on the IT, finance, HR, customer service and support, communications, legal and compliance, marketing, sales and supply chain functions. The firm was founded in 1979, has offices in 100 different countries, and generates over $4 billion in annual revenue. It is one of the largest and most trusted research and advisory companies in the world. It serves industries from customer service all the way to supply chain and procurement.

    In the procurement space, Gartner has a wide reach and is influential with many CPOs and procurement leaders. Many companies lean on Gartner for valuable insights across many of their reports. The P2P Magic Quadrant is considered a high-level overview of the P2P landscape, giving a comprehensive breakdown of the key players in the procure-to-pay market, complete with strengths and cautions. This is particularly helpful for those reevaluating their procurement needs and creating a shortlist of vendors.

    What is a Magic Quadrant, Really?

    Gartner describes a Magic Quadrant as “applying a graphical treatment and a uniform set of evaluation criteria, a Magic Quadrant helps you quickly ascertain how well technology providers are executing their stated visions and how well they are performing against Gartner’s market view.” This specific report gives a view into the vendors that met their criteria in the procure-to-pay market. Gartner’s evaluation process includes a variety of measures such as customer surveys, demos, calls, and in person meetings. This helps to build a complete profile of each vendor and provides valuable insight to product features and integration capabilities, customer experience, company infrastructure, innovations and much more.

    This detailed analysis is summarized via a graph which is divided into 4 distinct sections, hence the name “quadrant”. The quadrant is based upon two main factors which create the axes of this graph. The horizontal axis being ‘Completeness of Vision’ and the vertical axis being ‘Ability to Execute’. The report says “Ability to Execute: Gartner evaluates a P2P suite vendor’s Ability to Execute by assessing its product’s services, sales and marketing execution, and overall operations. They further evaluate how these criteria enable the vendor to be competitive and effective in the market, as well as its ability to retain and satisfy customers, create positive perception and respond to market changes.” And “Completeness of Vision: Gartner assesses Completeness of Vision of P2P suite vendors by evaluating them across multiple criteria that show their ability to understand current and future market trends, customer needs and competitive forces — as Gartner views them.” The four section can be defined as follows:

    • Niche Players: According to Gartner, “Be limited in terms of cross-industry adoption. They often lack functional components and the ability to handle deployments across multiple geographies and have an inconsistent implementation track record”
    • Visionaries: Gartner says, “Visionaries are ahead of most potential competitors in delivering innovative products and/or delivery models. They are typically smaller vendors or newer entrants that embody trends that are shaping, or will shape, the P2P market.”
    • Challengers: Per Gartner “Established presence, credibility and viability, and have demonstrated the ability to meet customers’ expectations in terms of functionality and customer experience.”
    • Leaders: As Garner states, leaders are in the strongest position to influence the market’s growth and direction. They demonstrate a market-defining vision of how P2P technology can help procurement leaders achieve business objectives for managing compliance and controlling external spend. They excel in their combination of market understanding, innovation, product features and functions, and overall viability.

    What makes JAGGAER a Leader in Procure-to-Pay?

    While we have been in the Leader quadrant for some time now, we are always trying to find ways to improve. The old saying holds true that the enemy of great is good, and we certainly won’t settle for just good. Since the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites came out, we have shifted towards the right on ‘Completeness of Vision’ while also moving upwards in our ‘Ability to Execute’. We believe this is largely due to our significant investments into cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and our commitment to build a zero-touch user interface, as well as our goal of 100% customer success. We strive to push the envelope on the next generation of procurement technology capabilities, processes and innovation, and consider this is shown by our improved positioning in the latest Gartner P2P MQ report.

    As always, our commitment is to provide the greatest possible customer experience. Our focus is to exceed our customer’s expectations with our solution suite, JAGGAER ONE, which covers the end to end procurement lifecycle. We hope that our customer-centric focus and product innovation vision is what will keep us in the Leader quadrant for years to come. Being named a P2P Leader for the third year in a row is something to be proud of for sure, but we have no intention of stopping there.

    In addition to the MQ report, take a look at how JAGGAER customers review our P2P solution through Gartner Peer Insights.


    *Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites, Kaitlynn Sommers, William McNeill, Micky Keck, Patrick Connaughton, Oct 25 2021.

    Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Procure-to-Pay Suites, 19 March 2021
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