The team behind collaboration engine SourceDay knows that timing is everything.
Since 2013, the company has sought to strengthen the relationship between organizations and their suppliers, offering products designed to drive teamwork and automation across time-sensitive supply chain processes. With a fresh Series C funding round under its belt, SourceDay is ready to refine its technology with support from an existing NetSuite partnership and increased headcount.
According to Senior Product Marketing and Enablement Manager Kelli Stanley, improving the company’s SourceDay Insights platform, which consolidates customers’ data in a central location, will unlock greater access to crucial information. “We’re enhancing this product to enable leaders to see the most important areas of their business and make impactful purchasing decisions,” she said. “That’s something that hasn’t been done before in the industry.”
CEO and Co-Founder Tom Kieley can speak to SourceDay’s first-of-its-kind nature, having worked in the software space for twenty years. He said he had never seen technology impact users so profoundly prior to establishing the company.
“Customers have told us that we’ve changed their lives, and I’ve never heard that at any other point in my career,” Kieley said. “Most people consider software a necessary evil, so we try to make it as user-friendly and value-driven as possible. We’re delivering on that promise, but we’re just getting started.”
FOCUSED ON THE FIRST MILE
As the company ramps up its technological efforts, the team is taking a different approach that aligns with the organization’s commitment to improving the initial leg of the supply chain. Colby Young, who serves as vice president of the NetSuite business unit, sees a shift taking place in how customers manage global e-commerce growth, and is excited about the role SourceDay can play in this transformation.
“The first-mile problem that we’re tackling is going to continue, and we’re in the perfect place to pursue it given our recent funding and current position in the market,” Young said.
As someone with a creative background, Stanley said the company has given her the chance to spark change in relatively new territory. She added that this opportunistic moment offers job seekers from all backgrounds the chance to drive progress. “People from other industries can come in and offer a different perspective on the supply chain as a whole,” Stanley said. “Anyone who is looking for a role with autonomy and creativity should apply.”
Below, Stanley, Young and Kieley discuss how the company is improving its technology, supporting the evolution of its employees and pursuing new opportunities.
How will the enhancements to SourceDay Insights impact clients?
Stanley: We’re in the process of gathering customers’ information from enterprise resource planning tools and our purchase order collaboration tool, and we’ll filter that into SourceDay Insights so that users can access it in a digestible, centralized way. This gives them the ability to measure their suppliers, on-time and in-full deliveries, cash flow, and everything else in one place.
Young: We have access to an amazing amount of data related to first-mile spend. Once we developed SourceDay Insights, we were able to approach this more intelligently. We had a simple scorecard that people and organizations loved, but now we’re getting much deeper into data analytics. We have a critical mass of suppliers, and we can really make better sense of the data now.
Kieley: We have a significant opportunity to provide actionable data through the millions of transactions that happen daily between buyers and their trading partners across the globe. We give our customers and their suppliers real-time, actionable visibility and insights to create more intelligent procurement processes and supply chains, while ultimately enabling them to offer more on-time customer delivery and fulfillment. In short, actionable insights overpower having data for its own sake.
What new product features are in the works, and what will these enhancements enable the company to accomplish?
Kieley: In the near future, we’ll be able to make introductions using our network of data, narrowing it down to a specific commodity or part number to drive introductions for customers who are not able to get the exact item, lead time or price point that they’re looking for. Our platform enables this type of connection down to geographical location, quality, pricing, lead time, supplier scoring and historical performance.
One of the most exciting things we’re going to do over the next six months is offer predictable insights and analytics. We have a significant amount of historical trending data and actionable transaction data in beta that will help our customers drive more intelligent buying behaviors, making their enterprise resource planning more intelligent and just-in-time manufacturing processes more capable. We’re going to roll out a first-of-its kind product later this year, which will be capable of predicting data points with 90 percent accuracy. This data will be critical to manufacturers, retailers and consumer product groups.
SEEKING DISRUPTORS
What is the importance of the company’s NetSuite partnership?
Young: Over the last few years of extreme supply chain disruption, we’ve been focusing on filling a critical first-mile supplier collaboration gap for Netsuite. We are helping NetSuite clients better manage the purchase order lifecycle from when the PO is created in NetSuite until the goods are received. This is a win for NetSuite to be able to now offer their customers this solution, a win for NetSuite customers to be able to solve a massive pain point to continue to scale without procurement or the supplier network being a bottleneck, and a win for us to get exposure to NetSuite product companies in need of our product for continued success.
One of the main reasons we opted for the built-for-NetSuite verification initially is that it grants organizations greater credibility. There are many consulting groups and system integration partners that look for built-for-NetSuite badges, and we’ve been a verified technology partner since 2019. This means that every six months, we re-verify our NetSuite integration. Having this verification takes the onus off of the client and puts it on us to ensure the integration is locked tight. NetSuite is partner-friendly, which means they understand that they don’t do everything perfectly, and there are gaps in every enterprise resource planning tool. They search for partners like us to fill those gaps and give their customers options, making it a progressive partner program.
“With more innovation and market exposure, we’ll be able to solidify ourselves as a category creator — and leader.”
What opportunities do team members have to evolve alongside the company?
Young: I started working at SourceDay six years ago as an individual contributor. I focused on that for several years and got to work on our partnerships. Once the NetSuite partnership took off, I was promoted to run that business unit. This is an example of how the company offers employees countless opportunities to grow internally and accelerate their careers.
Kieley: We acknowledge that we’re not perfect, and there are always ways to improve how we drive our values. Yet we put time, money and resources into driving career growth opportunities. For instance, we’re considering having our executive coach spearhead a five-month leadership training course. Like Colby, many other employees have been promoted internally with support from leaders. It’s important to maintain team members’ growth, capture their knowledge and help them move their careers forward. Occasionally, employees get chances to grow outside of SourceDay, and we consider that a success, even if that means we lose a great team member. It’s exciting to know we played a part in fostering their success.
CONNECTION ACROSS THE BOARD
How does the company plan to leverage its latest funding?
Kieley: From an operational standpoint, this funding is going to enable us to continue scaling. We want to open physical offices in the U.K. and Europe, where we already have customers. We wish to hire team members in those locations so that they can more effectively support customers and deliver more value globally. The technology and infrastructure needed for this growth is in the works; we’ll be planning this expansion over the next several months.
What are you most excited to accomplish as a team over the next year?
Young: Our product is already doing many amazing things and empowering people. The insights we’re working on will enable customers to manage their money more intelligently. With more innovation and market exposure, we’ll be able to solidify ourselves as a category creator — and leader.
Stanley: I’m excited to think of new creative ways to approach all the initiatives that are in the works, whether that’s through podcasts or videos. I’m eager to work closely with Colby and the rest of the team to be creative together and make an impact in many different ways.
Kieley: Raising a Series C funding round is a huge milestone for any organization, and we feel fortunate that we’ve been able to get to that stage and accelerate our growth. I promised our employees, customers and investors that we would pursue even more product innovation, which will drive continued growth.
It’s exciting to be at a point where we can make simultaneous investments in both product development and our go-to-market strategy. This is going to be a meaningful year for growth. We truly put our money into our culture and values, and we hope that job seekers will see that and want to join our company.
