CobbleStone Contract Insight® vs. GEP SMART

We use Cobblestone for all of our contract types across the company. We had a phased roll-out which helped get us live fast and share experiences with other departments for their implementation. the fact that it can support the different department and contract type scenarios were the biggest selling point. We are confident that it will evolve with us as we grow and acquire.

GEP SMART is well suited to equip procurement professionals to manage multiple RFx's at one point in time and help provide structure to the process. If an organization has an existing ERP and they want to acquire GEP SMART as a bolt-on, then integration is key. If there is any customization then it is more difficult to take advantage of the latest upgrades.

Incentivized

• The Cobblestone reps are great to work with.
• Cobblestone is easy to use and setup. Our users caught on quick.
• CobbleStone has a nice user-interface.
• CobbleStone's mobile app is a plus.
• Cobblestone integrates with a lot of other systems we use.

• The customer service level is incomparable to any other software providers I work with. The GEP Technical Team is very supportive and flexible.
• The GEP Team takes enhancement requests seriously and always tries to further develop/enhance the tool, especially with small requests from users.

Incentivized

• They are great to work with.

• Our organization has yet to take advantage of upgrading to the latest version of GEP SMART. The version that we are on does not make use of the full screen for the different internal windows and pop-up windows. I find it cumbersome to scroll left-right and up-down on the smaller windows when there is much real-estate on the screen that could optimize the user interface.
• GEP SMART provides technical support but our vendors seem to have some difficulty logging in to their profiles and updating their information. Occasionally, the salesperson delegates to another internal member so we'll have to set up the new member with their log in.
• The digital signature process requires that the signers of the agreement be defined before the agreement is routed for approval. Sometimes our vendors have a pool of signers that could sign the agreements and it can become a small challenge to change the signers after it has already been defined in GEP SMART.

Incentivized

Cobblestone has been great for us. I expect that we will work with them for many years.

The tool is fantastic, but we are investigating a broader spend management solution at the moment which may mean we look in a different direction for this capability, most likely internally developed.

Incentivized

We were please to see the fast user adoption with Cobblestone. We used their training services and were pleased with the delivery. The system also includes helpful videos and step-by-step guide. Cobblestone has out of the box dashboards that we used and tweaked to meet role-specific needs. The user interface is easy to understand.

The application is highly usable, but there are some parts of the design that could be improved such as the layout and scaling on the pages, the amount of unused white space within the interface, and the consistency of the interface between modules.

Incentivized

The performance of the GEP SMART platform overall has been excellent. We do not hear complaints about system performance and have not experienced any slowdowns in adjacent systems due to the GEP implementation. Of all the (largely self-inflicted) change management challenges we've dealt with, system performance and platform reliability have not been on the list of concerns.

Incentivized

Cobblestone's support is responsive and reliable. We use their self-help content and their standard support.

The support team is responsive, smart, and knowledgeable about their product and about our business needs. They are also flexible to respond to questions and find solutions to our requirements.

Incentivized

Although we had encountered many bugs, GEP was able to address them quickly, and sent a technical person to sit in our hands-on training sessions to address bugs efficiently

Incentivized

CobbleStone is the easiest contract management system to use. The setup took less time than expected and was under budget. The system flexibility was another selling point for us. The other systems seemed OK for one type of contract but didn't seem to support the variety of contracts that we have. It has been great for third-party contracts as well as authoring our contracts from templates and clause libraries.

We selected GEP SMART for its ability to offer a full end-to-end integrated source-to-pay solution, pricing, and ease of use. There was an implementation series offered by GEP, as well as flexibility, customization, account management team dedication, and the overall service and support.

Incentivized

• Easier contract request process
• Faster legal reviews
• Simpler workflow and approval processes
• Improved contract compliance
• Easier contract authoring and negotiations
• Faster contract signatures
• More secure contract repository with user permissions
• Better contract analytics

• GEP SMART has improved our spend analytics speed by allowing analysis to be completed in minutes compared to days when we previously used Excel spreadsheets.
• The SMART Sourcing (RFX) solution has greatly improved the consistency of our supplier quoting and information gathering process.

Incentivized