A few colleagues of mine were at SIG earlier this month, and they all had (some) good things to say about it. I, of course, wasn't there as SIG events are typically members only and I'm not a member - as it's primarily for companies and not bloggers and independent consultants. But I'm always happy to hear someone say "I used a quote from SI, and everyone in the room nodded in agreement as they know what SI is and what it stands for." since these are rooms full of CPOs and VPs who care about taking their sourcing to the next level. But I digress.

After finding out a few people were there and had positive feedback, I decided to download the brochure agenda and see who else was there. Buried on page 15 is the following:

Finding the Right Approach to Services Spend Management
  Ross Creasy, Senior Director of Global IT, Capital One and Ian Sullivan, COO, Provade

A joint presentation by Capital One and Provade! I don't know about you, but I can't help but make the obvious inference - that Capital One is using Provade to manage at least some of their services spend. If true (and I'll probably never know one way or the other for certain because Capital One is one of those high fallutin' financial institutions that never announces who they use or makes joint press releases and Provade is not going to confirm anything I can't print), this means that this innovative little technology-based BPO with a unique view on complex services outsourcing in areas such as HR, Legal, and Marketing that Jason Busch and I have been blogging about off-and-on for a while now has made a major score!

And if this wasn't enough to get you wondering, a quick look at their website on the events page has them at Oracle OpenWorld 2007 next month. Now, this could be just because they have developed their unique platform on the PeopleTools stack, and, thus, are able to uniquely leverage Oracle applications in their managed services. Or it could be because Provade is a Tier 1 Oracle BPO Partner. However, I'm betting it's because there's more here than meets the eye here as well or because they plan on making a major announcement in the next month or so. (Let's face it, massive events like this are not cheap.)

We'll have to wait and see, but regardless, for the progress they've made in tackling services categories that most solution providers won't touch with a ten foot pole, they're my vendor of the week (a SI exclusive through year-end - the 12 Vendors of XMas if you will).

For more information on Provade, I refer you back to the following posts:

For more information on just how hard it is to source marketing and legal spend, I refer you back to the following posts:

Magic & Logic I
Magic & Logic II
The Creative Challenge I
The Creative Challenge II

Legal Cooperation
Key Concepts for Major Procurements
Procurement Contract Risk Management