Overview
Alternate Suppliers helps you see other software suppliers that offer similar or overlapping functionality. This gives you quick context when you are reviewing a contract or exploring suppliers. You can use Alternate Suppliers to check for redundancy, identify overlaps that may already exist in your stack, plan consolidation, and understand your options before making a decision.
Finding Alternate Suppliers
Contract record
Follow this path when reviewing a contract to evaluate if there is a better or more cost-effective alternative.
- Navigate to Contracts and open a contract
- On the contract page, click Alternate Suppliers.
- Alternatively, you can click on the Contact Insights tab and click on Alternate Suppliers.
Supplier Intelligence
Use this view when you want to explore alternatives for a specific supplier and compare options side by side.
- Navigate to the Supplier Intelligence page
- Click View Details in the Overlapping Suppliers section
Requests
Intake Form
When you create a request and select a supplier, Tropic shows an alert if there are active contracts with similar suppliers. You can click View Comparison to review them before submitting.
What you can view
When you open the Alternate Suppliers view, you can compare suppliers that cover similar or overlapping functionality. This helps you understand whether another supplier could meet your needs or if a current tool already covers the same use case.
Comparison Table
Note: You may see more than one “Current Supplier” if your organization already has multiple active contracts that cover similar functionality. Tropic shows all overlapping suppliers so you can compare them side by side with external alternatives.
Current Suppliers
Lists suppliers your organization already works with that offer products or services similar to your existing vendor. These suppliers may not overlap in how you use them today, but they have overlapping capabilities in the market.
New Suppliers
Shows software suppliers in the market that can solve the same problem as your current tool. This helps you compare pricing, contract terms, product capabilities, and negotiation signals.
Negotiation Insights
Shows information that helps you understand how easy or difficult it usually is to negotiate with a supplier. This includes:
- Pricing variability. This tells you how much a supplier’s prices tend to move across similar companies. High variability usually means you may have room to negotiate. Low variability means pricing is more fixed.
- Adoption trends. This shows how widely the supplier is used across Tropic’s network. Higher adoption often means stronger benchmarks to compare against.
- Other negotiation signals. This can include things like how flexible a supplier is during renewals, common terms they accept, and which contract levers tend to work. These signals help you understand what to expect before you reach out to negotiate.
Ignoring Overlapping Suppliers
In some cases, your organization may intentionally use more than one supplier that overlaps in functionality. This often happens when tools serve different use cases, teams, or workflows, even if they compete in the same category.
When reviewing overlapping suppliers in Supplier Intelligence, you can choose to ignore an overlap.
You are prompted to provide a reason for ignoring the overlap. This helps document why the overlap exists and keeps your comparison list focused on what still needs review.
By default, ignored suppliers are hidden in the Alternate Suppliers view. You can turn off the filter to view ignored suppliers at any time.
Note: Ignoring an overlap does not remove overlap visibility on requests. Requests still indicate that an overlap exists and note when it was intentionally ignored.
Filters to Refine Your Comparison
You can choose up to two priorities to shape the alternate supplier list. Each priority adjusts the results to match a specific goal:
- Cost Reduction surfaces lower-cost options.
- Platform Consolidation highlights suppliers that can replace multiple tools.
- Feature Expansion shows suppliers that offer broader functionality.
- User Satisfaction focuses on suppliers with stronger sentiment and adoption trends.
These priorities help you focus the comparison on what matters most for your renewal or new evaluation.
FAQ
Q: Do I need to enable anything to use Alternate Suppliers?
A: No. This view is available automatically wherever Alternate Suppliers appears in Tropic, including contract records, Supplier Intelligence, and certain areas of Requests.
Q: Why do I see more than one current supplier?
A: If your organization has multiple active contracts that cover similar functionality, you’ll see them listed as current suppliers in the comparison.
Q: Where does the data come from?
A: Tropic maintains the supplier relationships used in the Alternate Suppliers view. This includes ongoing updates to ensure the comparisons you see stay accurate and reflect changes in the market.
Q: How often is the data updated?
A: The supplier relationships behind the Alternate Suppliers view are updated on a regular basis. If a supplier in the market changes, or if new relationships are added, Tropic refreshes the data so your comparisons remain current.
Additional Resources
For more training guides or documentation, please visit our Help Center. Our resources provide detailed guidance to help you navigate Tropic effectively.