Item: GEP SMART
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with GEP SMART

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using GEP SMART to consolidate and optimize our procurement and contract management functions across our entire enterprise. We had an antiquated, aging procurement infrastructure previously, with several stand-alone systems that didn't interoperate well. Our GEP partnership has allowed us to retire old systems, standardize our processes, improve our spend visibility, and position us to be strategic about how we manage our suppliers and spending going forward.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Ease of use.
Deep functionality.
Outstanding partnership and support.

Cons

Continued execution of their data strategy to enable customers like us.
Continued partnerships and integration strategy for seamless interoperability.
Continue to drive best practices into the toolset so organizations like ours can take advantage.

Unified Platform Benefits

We've benefited from this - in short, we have fewer humans touching the process, which leads to efficiencies and better outcomes. By consolidating our processes on the GEP SMART platform, we've enabled our procurement workflows to require a minimum number of touchpoints, something we did NOT enjoy in our previous architecture.

Return on Investment

Shortened timelines to get goods purchased.
Streamlined processes that have increased efficiencies and reduced headcount needs in a back office.
Improved our business processes to enable our business to work smarter and more efficiently.

Usability

The platform's usability compares favorably with those that it competes within the market. Our employees have not endured a stressful change management process because the tool is relatively intuitive. The advantage of being cloud-native and built with usability in mind from the get-go gives GEP a real advantage over many of its competitors.

Time to Value

This was a major initiative for us, replacing multiple legacy systems and fundamentally changing many of our business processes. Speed of implementation was not a primary driver - quality of implementation and minimizing business impact were of much greater importance. The entire process from initial investigation to go-live took more than 2 years, but our implementation engagement from contract signing to go-live was under a year.

Integration

The integration strategy that GEP employs has simplified our landscape. Our ability to seamlessly tie together important source systems and allow the all-important data to flow where we need it and when we need it is paramount. It has allowed us to simplify our support strategy, work fewer support tickets due to integration and data issues, and overall improve the experience of both our technology professionals and our business people.

Performance

The performance of the GEP SMART platform overall has been excellent. We do not hear complaints about system performance and have not experienced any slowdowns in adjacent systems due to the GEP implementation. Of all the (largely self-inflicted) change management challenges we've dealt with, system performance and platform reliability have not been on the list of concerns.

Alternatives Considered

We have used or evaluated Coupa and SAP Ariba primarily.

Key Insights

Do you think GEP SMART delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GEP SMART's feature set?

Yes

Did GEP SMART live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of GEP SMART go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GEP SMART again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

My high rating mostly reflects my confidence in GEP as a strategic partner. There are many technology platforms that would be sufficient; there are many companies that have a good story. However, we believe GEP is the organization to be partnered with as we go forward, giving us confidence that they will be by our side as our company grows and evolves, and that the service offerings and platform will evolve with it - always with the outstanding customer service and partnership that we've come to rely on from them.

Comments

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Honest (and glowing) review of my experience with GEP as a strategic partner