Xavier Pierre-Bez at the head of Corcentric Southern Europe

Xavier Pierre-Bez, the founder of B-Pack Software from Aix-en-Provence, is returning to the helm of Corcentric Southern Europe. Customers, employees and partners will appreciate this sign of confidence and continuity on the part of the software vendor’s American bosses after the departure of Gérard Dahan. What challenges and objectives?

Issues and challenges of the acquisition of Determine by Corcentric

With the acquisition in 2019 of Determine, born of the merger between the Americans Selectica (contract management), Iasta (tender management) and the French B-Pack (Procure to Pay), the US software vendor and service company Corcentric (Order to Cash, Fleet Management, Consulting) has acquired a foothold in Europe, a Source to Pay platform and a development framework designed by the Aix-en-Provence-based founder Julien Nadaud.
This technical foundation has enabled the rewriting of the software code for Determine’s unified offering, to which Order to Cash and the dematerialisation of incoming and outgoing invoices from Corcentric have been added, into a single source called One Centric. And Xavier says: “And today 100% of the solutions that are marketed and sold are based on the historical framework”.
The creation of the One Corcentric platform is therefore the result of four years of software development on business functionalities and quality improvement, allowing the software vendor to imagine a return to the Gartner Magic Quadrant and a growth in turnover thanks to the renewed confidence of institutions and the market.

About Corcentric (2020 revenue estimate: $150M)

Corcentric was founded in 1996 under the leadership of Douglas Clark as AmeriQuest, specialising in fleet management and optimisation consulting. In 2016, Corcentric began a policy of external growth with the acquisition of Infoaccess (document exchange). The company will take the name Corcentric in 2018 after the acquisition of Corcentric Collective Business Systems (automation of B2B billing and invoicing processes); in 2019 acquisition of Determine ($32M, Source to Pay) and Netsend (invoice dematerialisation); in 2020 fundraising of $80M, purchase of Vendorin (€100M, US payment network).
Corcentric’s top management, like that of US software vendors, is purely American for strategy, business and finance and Indian for technology. The Procure to Pay and Order to Cash skills of the various management profiles reassure us about the software vendor’s orientation (Source to Pay, Order to Cash, Vehicle Fleet Management, BPO for indirect procurement and fleet management), while questioning the ambitions for S2C – Source to Contract processes.

Corcentric Southern Europe: People first, human first

Xavier Pierre-Bez, historical founder of B-Pack Software in Aix en Provence alongside Julien Nadaud, now VP Innovation, takes the reins of operations and business for the greater Southern Europe. This is a sign of confidence and intelligence on the part of the managers on the other side of the Atlantic, marked by the unexpected departure of Gérard Dahan who left to preside over the destiny of SynerTrade.
Of course, the return of this charismatic leader to the helm allows for continuity for the teams in Aix (75 people), for its clients and its future partners.

Hiring of professionals, business skills

As Xavier Pierre-Bez has always promoted and carried out in the past, and contrary to the habits of B2B software vendors, Corcentric Southern Europe will be looking for professionals in the following fields: procurement, finance and accounting. The Corcentric University will help to integrate new employees and partners and the truly friendly atmosphere will do the rest.

Corcentric is recruiting

• Business Consultants from the procurement, accounting and finance professions,
• A technical consultant for integrations with a business background if necessary,
• A business advisory consultant
• Three pre-sales consultants with procurement skills for one and accounting/management for the other. 2 for Southern Europe and one for Northern Europe
• A partner manager,
• Business engineers
• A support correspondent

Joining Xavier’s team, a good idea

Business skills, individual richness, diversity of backgrounds, autonomy, entrepreneurial spirit are the personal qualities that can be expressed in the management of the trust offered a priori by Xavier Pierre-Bez. This absence of management by fear and pressure will attract individual talents to take advantage of the growth with, in particular, the introduction in Europe of Order to Cash solutions, a payment network.

Interview conducted during the Solution Show on 5 October 2021.

Lectori salutem, Patrick