Zycus Hosts Procurement Analysts and Customers at Confluence 2011 Conference in Boston, Mass

PRINCETON, N.J. November 30, 2011 – Zycus, a world leader in Procurement Technology Solutions, recently hosted a meeting of the minds in Boston, Mass. among the world’s most influential procurement solutions analysts, Zycus customers, executives and key members of Zycus’ product management group.

With Zycus’ focused mission of solving long-standing procurement challenges by placing procurement at the heart of high performing businesses – the primary purpose of the Nov 3-4, 2011 conference was to unveil Zycus’ complete procurement performance solutions suite. The integrated suite features extensive enhancements to Zycus’ solutions for Spend Analysis, e-Sourcing, Contract Management and Supplier Management plus unique innovations, including Financial Savings Management, a first-of-its-kind finance-centric solution for measuring, validating, and mapping procurement-driven cost savings to financial measures like profit and loss, cash flow, cost of goods sold and balance sheet.

Leading analysts and industry influencers in attendance at the event included: Deborah R. Wilson, Research VP with Gartner, Andrew Bartels and Duncan Jones, Vice Presidents and Principal Analysts with Forrester Research, Inc., Jason Busch, Managing Director of Azul Partners/Spend Matters, Thomas Kase, Lead Analyst of Spend Matters, Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer with Ardent Partners/CPO Rising, and Constantine Limberakis, Senior Research Analyst, Global Supply Management, Aberdeen Group, Inc.. Representing the Zycus team were Aatish Dedhia, CEO; Anurag Dixit, Vice President of Global Marketing; Bikash Mohanty and Sachin Sharma, Associate Directors, Product Management Group; Akshai Tellis, Associate Director, Pre Sales and James Thomas, Manager, Strategic Marketing. Key customer participants included Vertis Communications, a results-driven marketing communications company that delivers inventive advertising, direct marketing and interactive solutions to prominent brands across North America.

During open sessions on November 4, conference participants were treated to an inside look at how Zycus captures, maps, and measures its solution innovation from the perspectives of contemporary procurement professionals. “We evaluate each solution for completeness against an ever-expanding customer needs canvas,” remarked Zycus CEO Aatish Dedhia, who – beginning in 2001 – launched the Artificial Intelligence-driven spend classification engine, AutoClass, that catapulted Zycus to a leadership position among procurement performance solutions. “The guidance we give our product development teams today,” Dedhia said, “is that each solution we add to our comprehensive, integrated suite must also be able to fight an independent battle – in terms of functional completeness, ease of use and innovation – against perceived best-of-breed solutions.”

Anurag Dixit, Vice President of Global Marketing, provided insight into Zycus’ comprehensive processes for ensuring it consistently offers “simple solutions to complex problems,” including intensive user-interface (Ux) testing for ease of use, solution quality control and Zycus’ unrelenting focus on perfecting the “complete user experience” from solution implementation and training, to ongoing customer service and responsiveness and thought leadership in the procurement space.

Product Management team leaders Bikash Mohanty and Sachin Sharma provided solution-by-solution insight into Zycus’ master technology roadmap plus customer case studies – supported by attending customers – demonstrating how pressing procurement requirements get translated into Zycus solution features. In 1:1 breakout sessions, Akshai Tellis conducted detailed demonstrations of all Zycus solutions. Throughout both general and 1:1 breakout sessions, Zycus actively solicited feedback from the procurement solutions analysts and customers in attendance at the conference. “We were excited,” Dedhia says, “to bring so much procurement-specific experience together at one time and in one space. We are exceedingly grateful for the insights we received from our attendees and look forward to incorporating what we learned into our ever evolving customer needs canvas and roadmap.”