Introducing Tropic Discover: Market intelligence to empower software buyers

The SaaS economy is expected to expand another 11.3% in 2023 to hit $880b in spend. Behind virtually every company—from startup to Fortune 500—is a growing list of software that has to be discovered, evaluated, negotiated, purchased, and renewed.

But the proliferation of software options has created two fundamental problems that are soiling the software buying process:

• The rise in purchases stemming from marketplaces, advisory firms, and 3rd party sellers that claim to help buyers—but are heavily incentivized and compensated by sellers to promote their products over others.
• The balance of power is heavily skewed towards sellers, allowing them to extract as much revenue out of an overcomplicated process. In far too many cases, the price for the same software can vary by more than 30%. We’ve seen upwards of 87%!

At Tropic, we’ve negotiated thousands of SaaS contracts and manage $1.6b in spend across 2,500+ suppliers. Our massive database has uniquely positioned us to re-invent and re-engineer a solution. 👋

Say Hello To Tropic Discover

Discover is a foundational building block for our vision of procurement paradise, where data from 2,500+ suppliers is now at your fingertips to:

• Browse real-time market intelligence to find and evaluate the best software based on your needs.
• See usage and purchasing benchmarks before entering into the sales process.
• Understand how peers are increasing or decreasing spend for any given tool.
• Take advantage of special deals from a growing network of vendors—where any “incentives” are passed to buyers in the form of deeper discounts.
• Tap into our team of experts to answer any vendor-related questions and/or manage the entire purchasing process on your behalf.

Bypassing Incentivized Bad Actors

G2’s 2022 Buyer Behavior Report highlighted a trend shift for point of-purchase software buying with a 6% increase in preference to buy through 3rd parties and a 9% decrease in buyers wanting to directly buy from vendors.

The problem with this trend is that the vast majority of 3rd parties helping you discover or purchase software are incentivized in some way, shape, or form. Their reliance on commercial agreements significantly hinders the suppliers they can show you. If they are being compensated for intent data, premium listings, clicks, or purchases, YOU are the product.

To clear the air, Tropic is happy to announce our Supplier Code of Ethics to comfort buyers that we will always represent the buyers’ best interest and never receive financial incentives or kickbacks! YOU are the customer, not the product!

In 2023, we’ll be working with a growing list of vendors to offer Tropic Deals that benefit buyers, not Tropic. We’ll never take money from suppliers to push a product or participate in revenue share. Instead, any referral incentives are passed on to buyers in the form of more significant discounts. For example, if a company offers a 25% revenue share for referrals, we’ll negotiate a Deal where you, the buyer, get a 25% discount and Tropic receives $0.

Discover will serve as a nonpartisan marketplace of leading vendors—independent of Deals. Deals will be available in a separate tab and on the supplier’s profile alongside unbiased real-time market intelligence and pricing benchmarks.

Our goal is to assist buyers with discovering the best software. Supplier insights and Deals exist to ensure buyers that they are not overpaying on their purchases.

If you’re interested in offering a Deal in Discover, let’s chat. We’ve already got a number of great Deals from companies such as ChurnZero, BetterCloud, Modus Create, HyperComply, Lumos, and more that are participating in our early 2023 rollout.

Restoring The Balance Of Power

Because of the rise of technology, software sellers are equipped with an arsenal of data around buyer intent, funds raised, company growth rates, and much more. This data coupled with a lack of pricing transparency has given sellers a disproportionate amount of power.

Shouldn’t buyers be able to go into a contract negotiation with just as much data as the seller? You can when you buy a car, so why shouldn’t you be able to when you buy software?

Discover is here to level the playing field and restore the balance of power. Tropic’s internal teams have been leveraging this data for assisted purchasing, and we’re excited to unearth it for all Tropic users.

The Supplier Profile view gives users the ability to view insights and benchmarks pulled from over 27k contracts:

• Tropic Network Usage: The percentage of Tropic customers that use any given tool.
• Average Savings: The average savings between the initial quote and what is ultimately paid.
• Average Request Duration: The average number of days it takes from the initial request to contract signature.
• Annual Pay Range: The full range and median price that companies pay annually for any given tool.
• …and much more in 2023!

If you ever need help or want to make a purchase, the Quick Actions section lets you easily tap into our team of purchasing experts to:

• Request more detailed benchmarks that are specifically tailored to your business and purchasing needs.
• Ask questions relating to features, pricing, contract terms, or alternative suppliers.
• Kick off a purchase request to get the ball rolling through your preferred purchase approval workflows.

What The Future Holds For Discover

We were so excited to unveil Discover to the public, but what you read here is only the beginning!

In the coming months, we’ve got big plans to double the amount of underlying data and add more granular insights/benchmarks. We’ll also be leveraging user feedback to help shape the future roadmap.

• If you’re an existing customer, check out the new Discover tab and let us know what you think!
• If you’re looking to discover more about Tropic and Discover, schedule a demo today to see how we can help your company purchase smarter in 2023! 🌴