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This post is part of our 2016 Year-End Procurement Tech Review series, in which we offer procurement practitioners a bird’s-eye view of key vendors and their solutions in select categories. This week, we’re highlighting companies in the risk management and spend analytics spaces.

Riskmethods, which Spend Matters estimates is the fastest-growing supply chain risk management provider, is more than just a cloud-based provider of supply chain risk management software. It is a new type of supply chain intelligence utility. While the provider is still too small to have a solution that is “going viral,” its growth rate is significant relative to all other vendors in the sector and also a bright spot on the broader procurement and supply chain technology market.

Quick Facts

• Founded: 2013
• Headquartered in Munich, with an office in Boston
• Number of employees (range): 51–100
• Percentage of revenue from procurement/supply: 100%
• Serves customers in North America and Western Europe
• Number of customers (range): 51–100
• Industries responsible for the majority of their business: Manufacturing
• Customers include: Acushnet, AGCO, Bosch, HBM, Kardex, Kostal, Leica Camera, Miele, McGraw Hill, Moen, Nexteer, Swisscom
• Available modules: Risk Radar (identify threats), Impact Analyzer (assess impact), Action Planner (mitigate risk)

Background & Overview

Riskmethods has evolved considerably in terms of breadth and capability in the past couple years, enjoying triple-digit annual growth rates since its founding in 2013. The solution combines risk management application functionality, a graphical cockpit, aggregated/curated market intelligence, machine learning algorithms, human flagging/reviews/scoring and guidance/recommendations.

Upon loading suppliers, other facilities and lanes into the system, users receive rated/ranked supply chain risk alerts via email, mobile apps or the riskmethods web application. These alerts could involve an overall supplier, a supplier facility, the supplier’s management team, a financial indicator, natural disaster (in the vicinity of a supplier facility, port or lane), political incident or other risk factor.

Riskmethods provides a single comprehensive low-cost package to monitor all aspects of supply chain risk — and to embark on risk remediation steps. Its low-touch, rapid deployment model can scale with the level of granularity and configurability that procurement wants to enable. The company’s rapid growth highlights the appeal of the solution for manufacturers.

Three different integrated components are included in the solution: threat monitoring (and all related configuration and management controls); threat assessment; and threat mitigation/management (action planner). Among these, the first is the essential component to enabling the other two — and the key differentiator of the solution.

The closest competitor is Resilinc, but even Resilinc differs somewhat in philosophy, approach and even go-to-market strategy. Other providers which can offer “substitute” — but not exactly direct competition — to riskmethods include:

• Aravo
• SAP Ariba
• Beroe
• BravoSolution
• CVM Solutions/Kroll
• D&B
• IHS
• Intelex
• LexisNexis
• MetricStream
• Process Unity
• Rapid Ratings
• Sourcemap

Commentary & Summary

Riskmethods is a solution that is appropriate for middle-market and larger manufacturers. Those managing global inbound supply chains (or indirectly managing global supply chains in the case of multi-tier supply considerations) may find it particularly valuable.

The solution is unique in what it delivers to customers. Any manufacturing organization with an interest or need to monitor supply chain and supplier risk would be well advised to see a demonstration of riskmethods to see if it is right for them. Even firms that have invested in other risk management solutions and data will likely see a material differentiation in approach that could enable the difference between having sufficient time to mitigate a potential risk incident versus only having known about it, yet still having it affect their business.

For a more comprehensive analysis and guide for procurement organizations looking to understand whether they should consider adding the provider to their shortlists for consideration, please head over to the Spend Matters Almanac.