Hetal Mehta is the founder and CEO of iQuantum Inc., a modular, modern procurement platform. As the leader of iQuantum’s woman and minority owned business, Hetal works closely with all internal teams, customers, partners, and the iQuantum Advisory Board of industry champions and practitioners.
Hetal Mehta’s journey into the industry
For many years, Mehta worked as a developer and consultant to procurement teams. Through that experience, she recognised the need for a more sophisticated and user-friendly procurement solution, “one that does all the efficient and effective consolidations, automation and workflows – but also helps guide alignment between buying decisions and larger strategic corporate goals like increased diversity,” she says.
“My in-depth experience and understanding of supplier diversity led me to realise customers struggle with finding appropriate suppliers and are prone to continuing business with existing ones – even if that isn’t ideal.
“With iQuantum our goal is to leverage machine learning and AI to provide a modern procurement platform with access to the largest global supplier database that includes diverse and sustainable options. This helps customers build a more resilient and robust supply chain.”
iQuantum’s Unique Selling Point
iQuantum Inc. is a modern Source-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 spend decisions to strategic corporate goals.
Mehsta says: “There is no single provider on the market who competes with us pin-to-pin.” iQuantum is the only SaaS platform to provide:
- The fundamental procurement spend tracking AND the modern ESG and diverse supplier tracking
- Integrated Tier 1 & Tier 2 Diversity and ESG Sustainability tracking to meet today’s procurement needs
- Government and Customer reporting along with Subject Matter Expertise – they’ve helped several customers fine-tune their diverse spend tracking and achieve the elite Billion Dollar Roundtable or BDR
- Modular licensing approach and enterprise interoperability to accommodate each customer’s needs, budgets and existing system investments
- Single code base for quick implementation, easy maintenance and simple configuration with a sophisticated, user-friendly user experience
- Access to a global database of suppliers including diverse/non-diverse and green suppliers for procurement to add to the supply chain and achieve savings
- Their integrated Contract Management solution empowers customers with better alignment, reduced risk and increased compliance across procurement, finance, and corporate legal
The importance of Diversity in Procurement and Supply Chain and the role of iQuantum
McKinsey reported that working with diverse suppliers leads to an 8.5% in cost savings, which is more than the 3 - 7 % savings most procurement organisations realise. “Prioritising diversity in your employees and your supplier base as a part of ESG is integral to the growth and future trajectory of the company – employees, leadership, investors, stakeholders, and customers seek brands that are improving their profiles,” says Mehta.
Qualified diverse suppliers bring savings and a better service to customers. Procurement leaders have recognised this and are looking at ways to increase their diverse supplier base. (Increasingly Tier 1 and Tier 2 diversity reporting is becoming a mandate across different industry verticals).
She says: “We see these two tiers in Manufacturing, and in Law firms it typically comes from customers setting goals to win RFPs, while for the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical industry the stimulus comes from the government and encourages organisations to negotiate diversity goals and to report them annually.”
iQuantum’s automated customer and government reporting solution is helping customers achieve this. “This automation,” says Mehta, “and our in-depth subject matter expertise in exclusion criteria rules, is also helping customers achieve their goals and get on to the prestigious BDR round table. Our global database of suppliers allows customers to source from new diverse suppliers to meet their goals.”
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