The final day of Specright’s Specification Management Summit 2023 brought all 250 attendees together one last time for a presentation from SAP, interactive partner demos from Trayak, Lorax and Salesforce Net Zero, and closing remarks from our CMO Laura Foti who kicked off the beginning of Summit. 

Check out a few of the highlights from Summit’s final day below.

Startups are Critical to Enterprise Digital Transformation 

Technology paired with the power of startup innovation amplifies the value companies can bring to the world. This was the main message from Kange Kaneene, VP, SAP.iO Foundries North and Latin America and Caribbean (SAP’s Startup Accelerator), during her presentation on partnering for success. Kange discussed how SAP has helped thousands of innovators get started and scale and how it is trusted by 92% of the Forbes Global 2,000 companies. She then explained how SAP customers are unlocking additional value in their existing investments by using a spec-first approach in Specright, enabling companies to tie inventory and purchasing data with specs to accelerate product development, confidently report on sustainability, and more intelligently purchase raw materials. One use case Kange explored was how companies like Flowers Foods are driving economies of scale with their supply base through automated combination purchase order recommendations in Specright, fueled by SAP inventory data. The presentation emphasized that SAP and Specright are more powerful together, proving how startups can be critical to enterprise digital transformation. 

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Expert Partner Panel on Sustainability 

Several speakers this week have touched on the topic of sustainability and how its importance is only continuing to grow year-over-year. To wrap up final questions and thoughts on the topic, day 3 featured a panel of sustainability experts from our Specification Management ecosystem including Prashant Jagtap, CEO at Trayak, Michelle Carvell, COO at Lorax, and Cory Connors, Host of the Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors Podcast. The panel addressed new regulations, reporting requirements, and trends forcing businesses to take action now. Key takeaways from this session and the Q&A that followed included the notion that at the end of the day, brands are responsible for their products. The session stressed that it’s important for companies to get control of their data now and tackle the issue of granularity (it’s not enough to just say something is made from plastic). Additionally, the biggest problem currently with sustainability is that everyone is doing it their own way - there is no single standard. In the next ten years, panelist Michelle Carvell is hopeful a single standard will emerge. 

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Coming Soon: Spec Awards

Announced today, Specright will be introducing Spec Awards to recognize the individuals who are change-makers in their industries and are making amazing things using a spec-first approach. There will be three categories, as follows:

• Efficiency Award: This award goes to someone who has gained tremendous efficiencies through a spec-first approach (e.g. time savings, faster speed to market).
• Visionary Award: This award highlights someone who has used a spec-first approach to transform their business. 
• Sustainability Award: This award highlights someone who has used specification data to drive sustainability in their organization or with their suppliers. 

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We’ll be sending out award submission information in the coming weeks! 

It’s hard to believe Summit is over, but we had such a great time connecting with everyone and know the learnings and key takeaways from the presentations, panels, breakout sessions and individual conversations will be carried into the rest of 2023. We’re already planning for next year’s event and can’t wait to see all of you (and some new faces) at Specright’s Specification Management Summit in 2024! 

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