Procure IQ

Mostly Harmless, Part VII Previous Post In the last post, the purchase order was defined as well as some of the requirements for its generation. This post will address the challenges associated with purchase order generation, some associated best practices, and the benefits that could be expected from an appropriate e-Procurement solution. Common Challenges Requisition Partitioning A requisition contains requests for multiple goods or services, which are covered by multiple contracts at multiple rates depending on SKU, volume, or other terms. Which …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Mostly Harmless, Part VI Previous Post Formally, a purchase order is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller that indicates the type, quantity, and agreed upon prices for one or more products or services that the buyer is offering to buy from the seller. Once the seller accepts the purchase order, it forms a (one-off) contract between the buyer and seller, who will deliver goods and services at the agreed upon prices, in the agreed upon timeframes, to the buyer who must then, upon receipt of the agreed upon goods, in the agreed upon …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Mostly Harmless, Part III Previous Post An introduction to requisitioning. In the last post, the requisition was defined as well as the information requirements that were associated with the requisition. This post will address some of the associated challenges of the requisitioning process, some associated best practices, and the benefits that could be expected from an appropriate e-Procurement solution. Common Challenges Creation Time It can take a considerable amount of time to create a multiple line item …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Mostly Harmless, Part II Previous Post A requisition is a request for a product or service in a written form. With respect to e-Procurement, it is generally an electronic request for a product or service in a standard form, which may or may not use standard product or service codes from either the organization’s ERP/MRP systems or the supplier’s (e-)catalog. While the concept is simple, the reality can be quite complex, especially if the requisition is for a large BOM (Bill of Materials) that requires multiple products and services from multiple suppliers, as different types of …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

In a recent post here on Sourcing Innovation, we endeavored to explain how sometimes old-school works just fine with a case study from EC Sourcing Group that illustrated how a mid-size apparel retailer was able to use an old-fashioned multi-round RFX to streamline their ocean freight bid and reduce their costs by 19%, a savings significantly larger than what was expected in a time of rising costs. Another situation where tried-and-true works just fine, also courtesy of EC Sourcing Group, is with respect to the purchase of certain classes of enterprise software that can now be considered a commodity. …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Founded in 1999, Intesource is another player in the e-Sourcing / e-Negotiation space, but one with a bit of a twist. Whereas most SaaS providers are trying to sell you the all-powerful self-service fluffy magic box cloud solution, Intesource is still focussed on providing a full-service offering. Specifically, while you are given full access to the platform, their sourcing experts, who have conducted tens of thousands of events for hundreds of companies with a combined supply base that consists of over 10,000 companies, handle all of the event details for you which frees your organization to focus …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

It’s still a buyer’s market. Many suppliers are desperate for business, supply (capability) still exceeds demand in many markets, and even though prices are starting to rise in some markets with expectation of recovery, they haven’t risen much yet. According to many strategic sourcing professionals, it’s the perfect market for an (e-)Auction because suppliers will compete for your business. And while that may true, it does not guarantee that you’ll get the best result. An e-Auction carries a number of risks. The result can be higher prices than a traditional negotiation. For example, if …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

In our last post, we discussed AECsoft’s Supplier Information Management platform, which is one of the oldest and most mature solutions on the market (with R&D starting on some aspects five years before CVM Solutions hit the scene in 2002). It stacks up very well in terms of basic SIM capabilities, although some of its competitors like CVM Solutions and Aravo, which chose to stay SIM-centric and to integrate more data feeds (which may or may not have value to your organization, as these feeds will get very specialized after a certain point and have no value to the vast …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Iasta, a leading provider of eSourcing software and solutions, today announced that Gartner, Inc., a leading independent provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, has positioned Iasta in the “Challengers&#82…

Read the rest » E-Sourcing Forum

Today I’m going to briefly introduce you to yet another e-Sourcing company that you just might want to consider if you’re a mid-market company who has yet to adopt a sourcing solution and wants to get started with something that’s easy to use, easier to manage, and easier still on the budget. With pricing starting around 3K a month (depending on the size of your company and the number of licenses you need), you can get full access to a basic e-Negotiation suite with RFX, Auctions, Project Management, a Contract Repository, and Corrective Action Reporting with the EC Sourcing …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation