Today’s post is by Dave Wenig, Director of Sales, at SafeSourcing.

While the biggest reason that an organization sites as they begin to leverage eProcurement is to reduce costs and many first think of reverse auctions when they think of eProcurement, there are other benefits as well.

For example, when an organization is considering a complicated Request for Proposal (RFP) and want to understand much more than price alone, they often turn to their eProcurement partner for assistance. In fact, one of the more common misconceptions about eProcurement is that it does not work well for categories that are not commodities.

Actually, there are many reasons, including cost reduction to use eProcurement to better manage your RFP process for complex categories. The complexities may exist in the service requirements and might be considered difficult to quantify. They might also be in detailed technical requirements. These complexities create an even greater burden on a purchasing organization than other less complex categories.

A traditional RFP process can be cumbersome to manage internally. Beginning with the creation of the scope, requirements and other details, your team will typically have a heavy burden and are often under the additional pressure of a tight timeline. Then, once the RFP is ready the responses have to be solicited from vendors. From there, each vendor will respond, likely in varying formats and with varying levels of detail.Finally, all of these responses has to be reviewed thoroughly in order for decisions to be made. It is a substantial undertaking that will significantly tax your resources.

So then, what does eProcurement offer to address these challenges? First, you’ll have the guidance of your eProcurement partner in the creation and preparation of your online RFP. They will lighten the load for your team by taking on much of the burden associated with the process. Second, and this is a big one, your eProcurement partner will ensure that you’ll have vendor responses submitted and organized in a manner that allows for easy and efficient review and comparison of the vendor submissions including pricing. No more digging though vendor documents to align their response to your requirements. Each response is in its proper place for consideration. Third, you’ll have all of this at your fingertips electronically. Finally, you’ll continue to have support during your review process.

Dave Wenig is the Director of Sales, North America at SafeSourcing. Dave or any member of the experienced team at SafeSourcing would be happy to discuss many more reasons why our clients choose to host their RFPs online. For more information, please contact SafeSourcing.

We look forward to your comments.

Today’s post is written by Steven Belvin, Senior Account Manager at SafeSourcing

We often hear about Terms and Conditions, though many people do not actually read them. In this blog, I will be touching on the Terms and Conditions associated with a Request for Quote (RFQ). These Terms and Conditions often include specific details about Shipping, Price Protection Terms, Quality Requirements, and in some cases the Specifications. Terms and Conditions are basically the rules and guidelines that one must follow during a transaction.

Another step of the Procurement process that often does not receive the credit it deserves would be the Specifications. The specifications play a major role in the procurement process because it lays out specific details of each particular item your company wishes to purchase.  Also, the specification will detail essential characteristics that are required. The document will cover every tiny detail of the product and service that the buyer wishes to accumulate. The Business Dictionary Defines Specifications as “Exact statement of the particular needs to be satisfied, or essential characteristics that a customer requires (in a good, material, method, process, service, system, or work) and which a vendor must deliver. Specifications are written usually in a manner that enables both parties (and/or an independent certifier) to measure the degree of conformance. They are, however, not the same as control limits (which allow fluctuations within a range), and conformance to them does not necessarily mean quality (which is a predictable degree of dependability and uniformity).”¹ As one can see there is a lot more time and focus that would go into a Specification document, or even a Terms and Conditions document for that matter. Thankfully SafeSourcing will cover all the Terms and Conditions and Specification documents for you and your company; though we will of course, need to know what you want.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist your team with this process or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

Resources—————————————–

“What Is a Specification (spec)? Definition and Meaning.” BusinessDictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

Todays post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

For major chains the liquidation of this stock in a timely manner can significantly reduce reported shrink numbers and improve financial results and liquidity.

A Forward Auction is part of most e-negotiation tool belts. Probably the most well known type of forward auctions are those run by eBay. These tools are often overlooked as a way for companies to sell items that represent overstock, out of cycle, buffer stock, new old stock and other types of inventory that has been paid for and not sold through.

Placing these items for sale on your e-procurement provider’s website so that buyers from a variety of formats such as dollar stores, liquidation companies and other overstock resellers can bid for the items can positively impact shrink.

The simple philosophy here is that getting something for inventory that has already been paid for is better than getting nothing. The biggest dilemma to this solution is that most retailers do not know what is in the back rooms of their stores or how long it has been there.

An issue the above can create is the misinterpretation that shrinkage caused by employee theft, error or other mistakes is actually higher than it is.

There are any numbers of sources that report on annual retail shrinkage numbers. It is safe to say that average shrink numbers across the retail industry has hovered around 3% for years, although you will find significantly higher numbers by specific retail industry vertical.

The fact is that for a one billion dollar supermarket company, this represents $30,000,000.00 annually. With net earnings in this vertical averaging 1%, a reduction in shrink of 33% can improve earnings by as much as 100%.

A quick hit to these numbers can be accomplished by a forward auction. What do you have to lose? Better yet, what do you have to gain?

If  you are profitable enough or don’t care about your shareholders, then  don’t bother to contact a SafeSourcing customer services project  manager. After all, shrink has not gone down as a percentage in 30 years, so most don’t seem to care anyway. Maybe we could help make you a hero. It’s just a click away.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.