100 Implementation partners and employees competed to build the most impactful AI-powered innovations without writing any code leveraging Ivalua’s uniquely extensible platform

Redwood City, CA, January 23, 2024.  Ivalua, a global leader in spend management, today announced the winners and innovations from its first Generative AI Innovation Cup, held in December 2023. The competition was open to all partners and employees, attracting over 100 participants from 25 teams. Within a tight timeframe of 48 hours, the teams were tasked with creating innovative, practical and functioning use cases leveraging the Generative AI capabilities within Ivalua’s Source-to-Pay (S2P) platform.

The results demonstrated the impact of Ivalua’s no-code approach to its Gen AI powered Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA). With the Ivalua platform, customers gain access to broad, pre-packaged Generative AI capabilities embedded in the S2P process plus the ability to configure their own use cases without writing any code. This aligns with Ivalua’s historic focus on quickly delivering standard best practices while empowering customers to bring business innovations to life and turn their spend and suppliers into a source of competitive advantage.

The competition also highlighted the value of Ivalua’s extensive ecosystem of partners. There are currently approximately 2,000 partner consultants certified on Ivalua’s platform globally. They provide deep expertise on spend management and contribute to the rapid pace of innovation maintained by Ivalua. All innovations for the competition had to be built as “Add-Ons,” which are Ivalua-certified capabilities that can be activated for specific customers as needed. Ivalua recently opened its Add-On Store to partners to maintain and publish their own innovations, which are certified by Ivalua.

Teams leveraged the AskIVA generative AI service and the intuitive no-code configuration tools and framework to create a diverse range of use cases. All use cases had to be functioning and will be demonstrated at the upcoming Ivalua NOW conferences and made available to customers in the next platform release. Submissions were evaluated by a panel consisting of procurement leaders from Ivalua’s customer base and Ivalua executives. The winning innovations are:

• 1st Place: Fluxym & Ivalua: Smart Configuration Assistant: This team created an assistant that can take specifications and automatically generate the necessary configurations, suggest optimizations for existing workflows and write supporting documentation, greatly accelerating project timelines. For example, it took a workflow specification document written in natural language and within seconds created a fully configured workflow with suggestions to improve. The team also showed that they could readily replicate the same solution on any configuration of the Ivalua platform.

“We’re delighted to have taken on this challenge alongside a highly imaginative and dedicated R&D team. We can’t wait to use this feature once it’s integrated into the platform!” – Roza Lémdani, Ivalua Consultant at Fluxym.

• 2nd Place: Cyrias & Ivalua: ChatWatch: This team created an intelligent messaging monitor and assistant that can summarize missed messages / conversations from colleagues or suppliers, provide assistance to respond / translate and also identify suspicious or fraudulent activity and compliance issues by analyzing chat messages.

“Collaborating with the Ivalua team at the 2023 IVA Generative AI Innovation Cup was an exceptional journey, showcasing our ability to generate innovative solutions through our dedicated teamwork. Cyrias is proud to have played a role in shaping Ivalua’s innovation roadmap” –  Louis Foulonneau, Project Engineer at Cyrias.  

• 3rd Place (Tie): OJC & Ivalua: Exploring Sourcing Opportunities: This team created a capability to instantly search the internet and discover potential suppliers to invite to a sourcing event, based on user-defined criteria, and automatically launch supplier onboarding activities. 

“In this dynamic contest, the OJC & Ivalua team delved into the exciting potential of generative AI in procurement. Our combined efforts led to a remarkable third-place finish. This fun and enlightening experience, powered by the versatility of the Ivalua platform, demonstrated our synergy and sparked a wealth of innovative ideas for the future of procurement technology!” – Nicolas Sevaux, Project Director at OJC.

• 3rd Place (Tie): Ivalua: Interactive User Assistant: This team built even further intelligence into IVA, allowing users of the Ivalua Platform to interact with the content of any screen and leverage internet data for enrichment or assistance. For example, they demonstrated how IVA can then be used to assist buyers with reviews from the internet, search for alternate products, or respond to questions related to specifications, usage, performance, and maintenance.

Jean-Christophe Janin, CPO of Credit Agricole and competition panel judge said, “A few innovations came with a true wow factor made possible by an outstanding mastery in Generative AI technology, accessible to all.” Sylvie Noel, Globalbiz & ADRA President (former CPO of Covea) said, “Embrace AI as it will enable procurement professionals to focus on the core and strategic business challenges with increased depth while automating non-value-added tasks.”

“I am thrilled that 25 teams got to experience first-hand the power of Generative AI to solve concrete business problems in such a short period of time, and I am looking forward to seeing the best ones integrated into the standard Ivalua platform or offered as add-on packages,” said Pascal Bensoussan, Chief Product Officer at Ivalua.

About Ivalua

Ivalua is a leading provider of cloud-based, AI-powered Spend Management software. Our complete, unified platform empowers businesses to effectively manage all categories of spend and all suppliers, increasing profitability, improving ESG performance, lowering risk, and improving employee productivity. We are trusted by hundreds of the world’s most admired brands and recognized as a global leader by renowned industry analysts. Learn more at www.ivalua.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).

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