SourceDay is a cloud-based platform that helps manufacturers, distributors, and their suppliers manage purchase orders more efficiently by automating changes, reducing manual work, and improving supply chain performance. By syncing directly with ERPs and using AI to identify and address potential risks early, SourceDay helps companies deliver products on time, cut costs, and build stronger supplier relationships. Pulse 2.0 spoke with SourceDay CEO Michael Miller to learn more about the company’s approach and its impact on modern supply chains.
Michael Miller’s Background
What is Michael Miller’s background? Miller said:
“I’ve worked in the tech industry for my entire career and have specialized in supply chain tech for over two decades. This passion was nurtured in my early days at Dell, where I learned about supply chain and the systems that drove it, specifically those that solve logistical problems. Whether I was at Dell or startups I worked for thereafter, I was focused on providing retailers, manufacturers and distributors greater visibility to the information that’s most valuable (and hardest to find) – which is the inventory coming inbound from suppliers.”
“This specialty along with the variety of responsibilities I’ve held over the course of my career – overseeing strategy, product development, marketing, operation as well as channel development – have given me a strong foundation as the new CEO of SourceDay.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Miller shared:
“SourceDay was founded by Clint McCree and Tom Kieley, two leaders with backgrounds in manufacturing and tech.. When launching a decade ago, the pair developed a unique solution that could help address supply chain challenges, which ultimately led to the creation of the SourceDay platform.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Miller reflected:
“I joined SourceDay in July 2023 as COO and since then, there have been amazing strides the company has made. One standout memory I have is the launch of SourceDay Intelligence (SDI), which is our patent-pending artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platform. SDI aims to enhance buyer decision-making by enabling proactive risk management, recommending smarter resolutions, and facilitating scalable automation.”
“The launch of SDI in July of 2024 was an enormous inflection point for our company as it served as a pathway to a more predictive and automated supply chain. Our customers have already begun to see increases to their operating margins and revenue, which is incredible.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Miller explained:
“SourceDay is a direct materials procurement platform launched in 2013 that automates and de-risks one of the most vulnerable areas of the supply chain: Purchase Order (PO) Lifecycle Management. Over the past decade, we’ve advanced our patent-pending data models, ensuring that they continually learn from our in-house PO Lifecycle Management dataset, which is one of the largest in existence, to identify patterns, detect unforeseen risks, and calculate the potential impact for manufacturers before a disruption occurs.”
“SourceDay sets itself apart in the market by leveraging our proprietary dataset for more accurate risk detection and cohorting and faster decision-making on critical supply chain vulnerabilities, including lead time risk, proposed change risk, missing acknowledgment risk, and email issue risk. In addition, it puts manufacturers into the driver’s seat as they have the necessary information to address risks proactively rather than reactively, taking preventative actions earlier in a purchase order’s lifecycle, which saves time and cost and prevents the notable downstream impacts to inventory, scheduling, and ultimately timely (and profitable) delivery of their customer orders. Users can also leverage the SourceDay platform to automate no- and low-risk procurement activities through our configurable workflow engine that sits on top of SDI. The engine is designed to facilitate the reduction of manual PO touches by 80%.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Miller and the team faced in building the company? Miller acknowledged:
“Change is often hard, and we still see a fair amount of inertia at manufacturing companies who are still relying on familiar legacy processes, systems and approaches. I just don’t see the industry moving fast enough on digitalization, automation and AI initiatives that will be critical to address the needs of today’s volatile supply chain environment. Change management around that adoption remains one of the greatest hurdles to overcome, but when we explain the power of the SourceDay platform and the differentiating value that our proprietary dataset delivers to supply chain operations, there is a newfound openness for innovative thinking, technologies, and practices across the board.”
“Another challenge is navigating the increasing complexity of modern supply chains and the downward pressure for companies to become financially efficient at every stage/gate. Manufacturers are tasked with measuring inventory carrying costs, sometimes on a daily basis. This can be incredibly cumbersome when orders don’t arrive on time as they can impact their carrying costs, working capital, and cost of goods sold. To mitigate these risks and meet the expectations of a company’s C-suite, supply chain teams are turning to enterprise-grade, AI/ML-powered solutions like SourceDay, which solves problems across the supply chain using risk detection and recommendation algorithms and provides clear paths to resolution (both automated and manual).”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of SourceDay’s most significant milestones? Miller cited:
“Several milestones come to mind that are reflective of SourceDay’s growth as a company and its evolution: securing our first customer; the first time we processed $3 billion of spend in a single quarter; and the validation of our technology and approach by large partnerships with industry leaders like Infor.”
“We also have a major release coming later this Quarter that’s currently in beta testing. As we look ahead to the future, SourceDay aims to create new pathways for manufacturers to build more predictive and automated supply chains, in addition to strengthening their ability to both compete and increase operating margins and revenue.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Miller assessed:
“We currently have over 21,000 manufacturing companies that sit in our TAM, and that’s just North America.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates SourceDay from its competition? Miller affirmed:
“There are four distinct pillars that set the SourceDay platform apart from the competition: supplier reliability; risk visibility and resolution; cost containment; and data accuracy. Our robust PO behavior dataset is what makes us truly unique as it comprises the behaviors and actions of more than $65 billion in customer direct materials spend, behavioral data on 100 million PO updates annually, and 75 million in-platform and email messages per year.”
“This wealth of data enables us to understand the factors that drive PO outcomes in aggregate and down to the supplier level, and therefore make the platform better able to detect risks and deliver innovative solutions for manufacturers.”
I would also have to call out our approach to the Supplier side of the network. Whether it is our supplier success team, our focus on supplier UX and value realization, we are able to drive industry-leading engagement levels. This is the number one reason “portals” fail, and SourceDay has developed an approach that significantly improves supplier engagement.
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Miller affirmed:
“BraunAbility, a global leader in wheelchair-accessible vehicles and lifts, tapped SourceDay to help consolidate, organize, and modernize its procurement processes. Before we formed our partnership, BraunAbility’s procurement team managed the sourcing of nearly 15,000 stock-keeping units, all of which were required to build its vehicles.”
“However, in the absence of automated capabilities, BraunAbility’s small-but-seasoned procurement team struggled to ensure that the correct parts from suppliers arrived on time for production runs as it toggled between multiple homegrown dashboards, their ERP system, spreadsheets, email, notebooks, and even sticky notes. This resulted in the company missing purchase order (PO) changes in addition to entire POs in some cases.”
“By leveraging the SourceDay platform, BraunAbilty was able to quickly rectify these issues as it now had the capabilities to streamline processes across its entire network of global suppliers, from purchase order management to performance tracking. The company continues to differentiate itself by detecting, predicting, and providing resolution paths to common risks within the inbound supply chain (e.g., late customer orders, lower working capital due to excess safety inventory, and tarnished brand reputations—all of which have negative financial implications. BraunAbility’s integration of the SourceDay platform resulted in an increase in on-time deliveries by 35% and a reduction in inventory safety stock by 22%, decreasing holding costs, increasing available working capital and successfully lowering operational costs, and scaling its business.”
Goals For SourceDay
Looking ahead to the future, what are some of the goals you have for SourceDay? Miller concluded:
“A key priority is staying closely connected to the needs and goals of the people and teams we serve, ensuring we continue to deliver real value to their daily work and overall business success. As we look to the future, we are committed to solving challenges and creating positive experiences for more roles across the organization. Our focus has expanded beyond just working with purchasing and supply chain managers — we are now supporting a broader range of individuals, including leaders at the executive level, to help drive stronger, company-wide outcomes.”
