Hetal Mehta is the founder and CEO of iQuantum Inc., a modular modern procurement platform. As iQuantum’s women’s and minority business leader, Hetal works closely with all internal teams, clients, partners, and iQuantum’s Advisory Board of Industry Champions and Practitioners.
Hetal Mehta’s Industry Journey
For many years, Mehta has worked as a developer and consultant to procurement teams. Through that experience, she recognized the need for a more sophisticated and user-friendly procurement solution, “one that does all the efficient and effective integration, automation and workflow – but also helps guide procurement decisions in relation to the larger Alignment among strategic corporate goals, such as increasing diversity, she said.
“My in-depth experience and understanding of supplier diversity has made me realize that customers have a hard time finding the right suppliers and tend to continue doing business with their current suppliers – even when it’s not ideal.
“Through iQuantum, we aim to deliver a modern procurement platform using machine learning and artificial intelligence, with access to the largest global supplier database, including diverse and sustainable supplier options. This helps customers build more resilient and a robust supply chain.”
Unique Selling Points of iQuantum
iQuantum, Inc. is a modern procure-to-pay platform designed to meet today’s procurement needs for supplier relationship management, diversity and ESG sustainability tracking and reporting. They provide the tools and transparency to align spending decisions with corporate strategic goals.
“There is no vendor in the market that can compete head to head with us,” Mehta said. iQuantum is the only SaaS platform that offers:
- Complete supplier discovery and payment in one platform with modern ESG and fully diversified supplier management.
- Discover new suppliers from a database of millions of global suppliers to improve supply chain resilience and support new product introduction (NPI) sourcing
- Integrated supplier communication and collaboration, with built-in chat and conversation storage for future reference and context
- A modern approach to strategic sourcing for indirect, direct and new product introductions through internal team collaboration
- Rich contract, procurement and spend management analytics
- Integrated primary and secondary diversity and ESG sustainability reporting and benchmarking
- Government and client reporting and subject matter expertise by fine-tuning their diverse spend tracking and achieving elite Billion Dollar Roundtables or BDRs
- Diversity and small supplier visibility for iQuantum’s Fortune 500 customer base, including support for suppliers in marketing their products and catalogs
- Modular licensing approach and enterprise interoperability to meet each customer’s needs, budget and existing system investments
- A single code base for fast implementation, easy maintenance, and simple configuration with a sophisticated, user-friendly user experience
- Access a global supplier database, including sourcing from diverse/non-diversified and green suppliers to add to the supply chain and realize savings
- Better coordinate, reduce risk, and improve compliance with procurement, finance, and corporate law
The Importance of Diversity in Procurement and Supply Chain and the Role of iQuantum
McKinsey reports that working with diverse suppliers can lead to cost savings of 8.5%, which is more than the 3-7% savings achieved by most procurement organizations. “Prioritizing diversity among its workforce and supplier base as part of ESG is integral to a company’s growth and future trajectory—employees, leadership, investors, stakeholders and customers are all looking for ways to improve their image brand,” Mehta said.
Qualified diverse suppliers bring cost savings and better service to customers. Procurement leaders have recognized this and are looking for ways to increase their diverse supplier base. (Increasingly, Tier 1 and Tier 2 diversity reporting is becoming mandatory across different industry verticals).
“We see both layers in manufacturing, in law firms it’s often from clients setting goals to win an RFP, and for healthcare and pharmaceuticals the stimulus comes from the government and encourages organizations to negotiate diversity goals and report,” she said. They are every year.
iQuantum’s automated customer and government reporting solutions are helping clients achieve this goal. “This automation,” says Mehta, “along with our deep subject matter expertise in exclusion criteria rules, is also helping clients achieve their goals and access the renowned Billion Dollar Roundtable BDR. source from diverse suppliers to meet their goals.”
How iQuantum Meets Modern Business Challenges
Businesses today need help driving alignment across departments and teams. Core brand values and strategic goals need to surface in all corporate decisions – but most importantly in spending decisions. “There is an urgent need to meet diversification spending and ESG sustainability targets set by leadership and closely tracked by government regulators and investors,” Mehta said.
“Our clients love working with us because of our commitment to client success, our responsiveness to client needs, and our budget-friendly pricing.” This approach echoes the McKinsey report on better savings when working with different vendors Cost and findings related to enhancing the overall experience.
Support women-owned businesses
iQuantum has subject matter experts working with diverse businesses globally (women, minorities, veterans, disabled, LGBT) to provide guidance on certification options and processes; enriching their supplier profiles to maximize their engagement with upcoming Impact and relevance of RFQ (Request for Quote), RFP (Request for Proposal) and RFI (Request for Information) or direct material procurement.
“We also assist certified businesses in preparing catalogs to simplify business sourcing of their products,” Mehta said. Our regular supplier outreach, supplier spotlight newsletter and social media channels promote and support women, minorities and minorities Other certified businesses. It’s part of our mission and DNA.”
Adapt to Procurement Development
Today’s procurement needs have changed. They need a platform to address the modern challenges of today’s diversity and ESG sustainability tracking. “Every purchase needs to align with the strategic goals of the business and help drive growth,” Mehta said.
“Increased government regulation and consumer scrutiny of corporate brand spending has increased the need for new purchasing methods.”
“Customers benefit from our ‘buy only what you need’ approach, which helps them avoid paying for features they don’t use. Our quick onboarding makes for a better user experience and reduces time to return on investment.”
“If you’re looking for a modern, modular procurement platform to meet today’s procurement needs, then iQuantum is the solution.”
quantum strategy
iQuantum’s strategy is best viewed from 3 main aspects –
- For Diversity, their approach is twofold. First, they want to help companies easily source, join and buy from different suppliers.Second, they aim to help different suppliers reach potential customers by providing a platform to market their products and services
- When it comes to ESG, iQuantum’s goal is to help it become an integral part of the company, not just an afterthought to meet reporting requirements.For example, they help companies assess their greenhouse gas footprint early in product development when designing new products or building new facilities
- For Source-to-Pay, iQuantum’s goal is to make the entire process seamless. They provide a single platform where companies can perform all aspects of procurement i.e. sourcing suppliers (Q-Discovery), qualifying (direct material procurement via RFx and manufacturing), onboard (contracts), procurement (order management) , monitoring (SRM ) and control (spend analysis), also allows modular consumption.They are also designed to help companies protect their existing investments by integrating with any systems they may already have installed, should they need to
Future Outlook for iQuantum
Diversification markets are transitioning from being driven by government mandates to being an integral part of corporate strategy. Mehta believes that iQuantum is “in the early stages of realizing the full potential of this market.”
She said: “It’s really a new but fast-growing market for ESG. Companies simply don’t have a good way of assessing their greenhouse gas footprint, and we’re one of the few solutions that can help them do that. We We see great promise in helping companies assess their environmental footprint.”
In the Source-to-Pay space, iQuantum’s customer conversations proved that not only are traditional procurement vendors unable to meet today’s modern business needs, but they also have yesterday’s user experience. “We’re working on that,” Mehta said.
Finally, on regulations, Mehta said: “Regulations come into force and are defined every day. We are constantly on the lookout for any changes that may affect rules, reporting and best practice.
“iQuantum keeps SEC, SBA, CDP up-to-date, helping clients adapt to changing environments and remain agile.”