GEP SMART Reviews

We are using it mainly for the RFQ, RFP, tendering, etc. 

We are also using it for contract management. Though, we haven't completely used all aspects of the contract management, e.g., we have used the supplier evaluation. We are uploading the contracts, then it is giving us reminders for renewals. For the contract administration part, we are getting notifications from the system. 

We have used it for a sealed bid and evaluation. It has functioned well.

We are using it for sourcing management. Since we have DOA approvals in the Oracle system, we cannot use the purchase requisition as well as a purchase order process in GEP SMART. When a request is coming from the user department, it will need approvals. Once it has the system approvals, it comes as a notification. Then, we will use GEP SMART as a standalone program to function from tendering until finalizing the tender. We then take that final result back to Oracle for the approval process. That is how it functions.

There is a bit of hesitation within the organization to completely adopt the system changes. Since there is involvement from various departments, e.g., legal and finance, there are challenges because we already use other systems. If the entire system would be GEP SMART from the beginning, then acceptance would be much better than implementing it in the middle.

The most valuable features are the sourcing and tendering processes.

I haven't had any difficulties when using it. 

Before introducing GEP SMART, we were using all the supplier databases in Oracle Financials. When we implemented GEP SMART, we wanted to do the supplier evaluation online on a real-time basis. We just wanted to give the link, but we faced some problems with the synchronization from GEP SMART to Oracle. Even though we have GEP SMART for the supplier registration, we use Oracle for our delegation of approval (DOA) processes. The DOA process is happening in Oracle Financials. Therefore, each time we register a supplier, it needs to have approval from finance and the business unit as well as the supply chain. Because we pushed the existing supplier database to the newly installed GEP SMART process, we have faced some problems with this function.

While it captures all the fields and requirements, when any supplier updates or new supplier registration happens, then the supplier needs to update their bank details. Our IT team has made it so every half an hour the GEP SMART system will push the supplier to the Oracle Database. So, we have faced some problems, like bank details, etc. We addressed this issue with GEP. They are working on it to make bank details a mandatory field for any supplier and match our requirements. Their engineering team has taken up creating a customized process for us.

We are planning to do the supplier performance evaluation this year, for which they have a module. Last week, we were having a discussion with GEP, and they had sent me a document, but I had to go through it in detail about how it would function in GEP SMART. 

We have been using the solution for more than a year. We went live in December 2020. From January 2021 onwards, we have been using it.

So far, we haven't seen any issues. 

We are not a heavy user of the solution. Due to the nature of our requirements, we use GEP SMART for minor projects because of the involvement from various departments. It would be difficult for us to explain and give training to everyone who needed to use the system with larger projects. Though, some high-value contracts are using GEP SMART. 

We have a total of 25 licenses, mostly assigned to the supply chain team, not the entire organization. These 25 users have full rights. However, there are users who have limited access. For example, a user from the technical department can do certain evaluations online. This does not need full rights. Instead, it has limited transaction details.

They have an excellent technical support team. We have a biweekly meeting with the technical team, where they capture all the issues in a log, then they come back to us with solutions. We can address any issues. If it is an engineering issue, then they will go back to their research and engineering team to fix it. 

Since we are in the oil and gas industry, we have specific, complex requirements due to our global presence. Therefore, it may take time for them to do the customizations since they need to make changes to the global platform. While those customizations may take some time, their response time is much better.

Positive

I have a good knowledge of sourcing software. I have implemented a lot of software and used four programs throughout the years. I have seen that the sourcing process in GEP SMART is easier than in Oracle, SAP, etc. 

The initial setup was quite straightforward. 

We had some challenges when we were migrating the existing suppliers to GEP SMART. We also had some issues when uploading the agreements to GEP SMART. For any organization, an agreement will be in different stages. Some of them will be at the half-life of the contract, some of them will be at the beginning, and some of them will be at the end. However, they gave us templates to upload documents, details, etc. Given the details in the template, it was easy to upload the documents and information to GEP SMART.

The deployment took a month. We had the templates, which we used for the details. Globally, there were about 120 contracts and 4,000 suppliers that we deployed initially. So, the deployment didn't take a lot of time. 

In Malaysia, we haven't yet used GEP SMART. Though, they are planning to use it this year. Because of restrictions, we needed approval from the local authority. Even though we implemented all three modules, i.e., vendor management, contract management, and sourcing management, only Abu Dhabi used all three together. Whereas, Thailand and Malaysia were using it in different stages. In Thailand, they initially used the contract management module to upload all their contracts and administer them. Later on, they started to use the sourcing management and vendor management modules.

If our organization could use it as a full-fledged solution, then it would be valuable and give a return on investment. However, since we are not currently using it as a full-fledged solution, even facing some bugs and problems with the synchronization with some of the internal software, we are not able to use it in a full-fledged manner.

We have two types of licenses: 

1. The full license.
2. A license for people who can work in the system but aren't heavy users. 

We evaluated five different software solutions. We looked at Oracle, Aruba, and some solutions developed in our local market.

It is a good solution.

We don't know how possible it is to use the full function of GEP SMART. What we understood from the GEP team is that they have an entire end-to-end process, such as a procure-to-pay process available in GEP SMART. We haven't taken any chances up to now, since we are using this solution for our global platform. For example, we have operations in Southeast Asia, like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, and there are certain restrictions in the system due to required customizations. A lot of customizations are required due to regulatory requirements from Southeast Asia. Therefore, it is not easy for us to completely use the platform. We may use it completely in another two or three years.

We are unable to use their contracting process very well because we need to use contract templates. Unfortunately, our legal team has their own standardized software to use for agreements. They were not ready to accept GEP SMART to work online for reviewing the contracts. So, we tender out to suppliers, and when the supplier comes back to us with any comments on the agreement format, then we will download it and share that with legal, using Outlook to work on it. We haven't used the full-fledged, end-to-end solution because we cannot use it with our legal team.

Rather than going with one or two modules and synchronizing them with a lot of other systems internally, which would be a tough task, you should get the full procure-to-pay solution. Overall, the full-fledged solution can be very good for your organization.

From my experience, I would rate the solution as seven out of 10.

We're leveraging SMART for four of their modules. We use it for sourcing, contracts, suppliers, and spending. However, we're not leveraging it for procurement to pay the downstream operations based on our current technical infrastructure. The most common use cases stem from procurement on the sourcing side for a need to go out to bid. And then on contracts, flipping those sourcing events to a contract or the awarded RFPs. For contracts, any master agreement that we do is also added into SMART. It's mainly used as a post-execution lifecycle management tool on the contract side. Based on our kind of utilization and desire, we have pre-execution capabilities enabled, but based on the maturity of our organization, we are actively leveraging it in that manner.

SMART's source-to-pay feature has helped us undergo a digital transformation. We're only using upstreams and not the procure-to-pay side of SMART but it has definitely transformed our operations. It's encouraging us to streamline, especially as we leverage functionality with e-auctions and more of the authoring capabilities that SMART has already. It's continuing to transform our organization.

SMART also helps with standardization, especially on the RFX side, by providing standardized templates. However, even though we're not fully leveraging SMART's authoring capabilities, we have the latest templates, which is huge from a compliance perspective. SMART's AI and machine learning capability has made a difference, especially on the spending side. We have  10 ERPs across our organization, and GEP's robust AI/ML can normalize our suppliers and categorize our spending across those 10 source systems. That's been huge in terms of our ability to analyze spending across our entire organization appropriately.

Having a single unified software platform has simplified our procurement operations. Before leveraging SMART we didn't have a single system on the contract side to manage our file folders, file cabinets, shared drives, etc. It was antiquated before. Having a single system with high visibility across the system has allowed us to increase our collaboration and our purchasing power because we're able to leverage our economies of scale better.

SMART has been helpful for sourcing and public bids. For regulatory purposes, our university posts bids, depending on the scope of the bid. We get a lot of value out of SMART's ability to post to a public site and have suppliers see that information, register in the tool, and participate. SMART features for collecting information and its timeline capabilities are highly useful. Then on the contract side, the reporting capabilities are the most valuable. Our use case focuses primarily on post-execution and lifecycle management, so it's essential to be able to report accurately especially compliance-related reports.

SMART is easy to use, especially when reporting. It isn't designed for a hardcore analyst. You don't need to have a background in analytics to run reports, which is huge. I realized I hadn't touched too much on the spending side, but we use SMART for all spending analytics, and any commodity manager procurement professional can go in and run a spending report. That was a business decision to restrict who can run reports since that data can be exported and used. But the reporting capabilities are incredibly easy to use.

We are delighted with the product thus far. Based on our business, I see a continued need to leverage some of the capabilities further. Analytics has been the main driver for us. I see constant improvement. They released an update in January 2020 or maybe fall 2019. I want to see continued investment in analytics and reporting.

We began implementation in 2017 and have been using GEP Smart actively since January 2018. 

SMART is a highly stable product, and I think GEP put a lot of checks and balances in place to ensure that stability. I've seen a transformation on their end since we went live in 2018 in terms of how they incorporate new enhancements and releases. They're breaking out small-scale releases as well as what they're calling "general availability" releases, and that's had a positive impact on the platform's stability.

I think SMART is scalable and I see that happening a lot. We just attended the GEP conference a few weeks ago and saw that some other organizations are scaling it out. From a sourcing standpoint, we have high adoption of the tool itself. Where we want to grow our adoption is on the auction side because we see added value in leveraging auctions more as an organization. 

On the contract side, I think we have high adoption too. The scope for our contracts module is RFP-awarded agreements and master agreements. We have high adoption as it relates to using the post-execution and lifecycle management capabilities. Where we want to grow our adoption is in the execution and then ultimately pre-execution capabilities. We have high adoption on spending. We've integrated all of our financial systems and folks are running reports across campuses within the university system. 

We have over 300 procurement professionals handling bids, creating contracts, and running reports across our organization. I don't have a number for all the people who serve as evaluators, signatories,  etc., but all active employees can access the system if necessary. At this time, we don't plan to expand the scope of use beyond procurement. We're not looking to incorporate legal or real estate-related contracts that we do. But we have plans to leverage the software more fully to achieve wider adoption. We're constantly looking to continue to grow in our utilization.

I would give GEP support a 10 out of 10. They do a fantastic job and are very responsive. If there are escalations, they respond quickly and do a great job of explaining the root cause to us, which is essential. We want to know why this is happening the way it is.

We have our internal help desk that takes all of those procurement requests from any internal users of the system. Our external supplier users go to GEP support for conflict-of-interest purposes. We want to ensure there are fair bidding practices. And so, for those reasons, we have them go to the GEP support team, and any escalations from our internal help desk go to GEP support. 

We've got a dedicated help desk contact on the GEP side who speaks our language and knows our configuration, which is huge. You're not starting from zero every time you need to escalate something. Our client success team is also a key partner because they are in the loop on any of the internal escalations that come from our help desk. Their model is one that I haven't seen with other software providers. Usually, you have an account manager, and they might call them "customer success." The level of engagement that I've seen with the GEP team is excellent, and it's something I appreciate.

Positive

We had a prior solution for sourcing and spending. It was explicitly for contracts, and only one of our business units was leveraging it. The idea was to streamline all upstream activities into a single software suite. That was the impetus for us to adopt SMART. We opened it up for bidding and ultimately selected GEP as our provider. But I was not part of the RFP process. I was brought onboard afterward.

Setting up the system itself was easy. However, it was complicated to streamline our processes to ensure the system didn't become overly complex. The overall deployment took about six or seven months because we had to sort out internal business requirements, gather information, configure the settings, and do some testing on our end. 

We have a team of four managing the solution, but that's a business decision. We opted to build an internal help desk because of our many processes and policies. They provide folks with GEP. Two of the four are dedicated to the help desk and training.

I would absolutely give GEP SMART a 10 out of 10. We're happy with the solution and the team's ability to engage with us. Before implementing SMART, I would recommend reevaluating your processes. Whether you have a previous solution or not, reevaluate your processes before you go in and begin leveraging SMART. I mean this in reference to SMART, but it's general advice. Reevaluate your processes because there are so many capabilities available in a SaaS solution, so it's critical not to over-configure and make it convoluted.