IBM is expanding its Smart Cloud commerce initiative – and its analytics portfolio as a whole by doing a lot of M&E. Yesterday the company announced that it has acquired Emptoris for an undisclosed amount.

The Burlington, Mass-based Emptoris provides cloud and on-premise software that helps companies understand how they performance in terms of supply chain operations and all of the accompanying aspects, such as supplier and contract management. Emptoris serves retailers and other organizations spread across a number of industries, including healthcare, telecommunications and manufacturing.

Big Blue had a strong motive behind the deal.

“With this acquisition, IBM builds on its capabilities in the “buy” aspect of Smarter Commerce and extends it to a new line of c-suite executives – chief procurement officers.

“This growing list of decision makers includes chief information officers, chief financial officers, chief supply chain officers and chief marketing officers.  Procurement and sourcing professionals increasingly need better supplier management, spend analysis and contract management solutions to lower sourcing costs and risks. “

This latest acquisition comes shortly after another one IBM made in the cloud analytics space about a week ago. It bought out DemandTec for $440 million, a provider of web-based merchandising analytics software for the retail industry. DemandTec is also being integrated into the Smart Commerce initiative which IBM claims to have a market opportunity of over $20 billion.

While the firm is moving towards covering more ends of the retail industry with its analytics portfolio, a couple of earlier acquisitions reflect a broader agenda targeting more than just one sector. Another company that has become a part of IBM recently is i2, which focuses on making analytics software aimed at assisting municipal tasks such as crime prevention. A deal to buy Algorithmics for nearly $390 million was announced in the same timeframe.