In February 2017 Beroe launched its free on-demand procurement/market intelligence platform. It is self-described as offering “no-frills access” to procurement category intelligence and it certainly delivers.
Beroe was founded in 2005 by Vel Dhinagaravel, Dr. Robert Handfield (author of Supply Market Intelligence: A Managerial Handbook for Building Sourcing Strategies) and Dr. Mitch Javidi. Beroe provides market intelligence focused specifically for procurement professionals.
The platform is intended for procurement departments of all sizes and covers 210 direct and indirect categories.
There are many reasons why the Beroe LiVE platform is impressive. First, it is rare to discover information that is at the same time actionable and of the highest quality. To meet this criteria it needs to be: 1) current/up-to-date, 2) detailed enough to be actionable, and 3) credible, coming from authoritative sources. It is even more rare to find it freely available. Second, the Category Intelligence reports are presented in “slides” (instead of pages) and are very easy to read with information being presented clearly, succinctly and accompanied by helpful graphs. Third, the methodology used for gathering the information and where it originates is provided at the beginning of each report. The data come from outside sources, Beroe’s research teams, and industry experts (senior executives, technologists, and leading consultants). Fourth, the information is tailored specifically to meet the exact needs of procurement professionals charged with managing the various categories. For example, here is the TOC for the Corporate Travel intelligence report:
In the world of market intelligence and research, both the process, and the discovered data, are becoming more and more fluid and less static. There are currently interesting discussions about the role conversational interfaces can play when performing research. Beroe LiVE allows you to interact with peer communities and participate in discussions and polls about the intelligence offered. You can even highlight a portion of text in a report to share and start a discussion.
According to Beroe’s website, six months ago they had an epiphany to provide market intelligence that will “enable every sourcing decision” and luckily they realized “that making it free is the only way to get every Procurement professional in the world to use it.”
This is an incredibly impressive resource that every procurement professional will find to be invaluable.