Todays post is from Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

During the period of January through October of a recent year a fortune 100  retail company conducted  a total of eighty seven  eProcurement events utilizing the SafeSourceIt™  eProcurement toolset consisting of on-line RFI’s, RFP’s and RFQ’s or Reverse Auctions. Of the eighty seven events (87), twenty five (25) were specific construction events. This represents 28.7% of all events run by this company. This did not include equipment or related products used by the general contractors to complete the construction projects such as roofing, flooring, fascia, concrete, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and refrigeration, etc. These additional event results are shown below the construction list as in order to offer a more complete picture of the entire construction category.

Included during the general contractor bid submissions were a variety of specific line items related to the following categories.

1. Demolition
2. Site Preparation:
3. Sediment/ Erosion Control
4. Earthwork
5. Environmental and Wetlands
6. Landscaping
7. Asphalt Paving
8. Traffic Signage
9. Concrete Curb and Gutter
10. O.W. Improvement
11. Traffic Signalization
12. Storm water Management
13. Offsite Utilities
14. Water Service
15. Sanitary Sewer Service
16. Natural Gas Service
17. Electrical Service
18. Telephone Service
19. Fencing
20. Retaining Walls
21. Sight Lighting
22. UST

(Figure 2)

Construction Item Sourced and Savings %

1. Strip curtains 39%
2. Walk in Coolers 29%
3. Signage 79%
4. Graphics 35%
5. Impact Doors 60%
6. Roofing 20%
7. Fire Extinguishers 59%
8. Lighting 22%
9. Mill Work Display 40%
10. Concrete 18%
11. Cooler/Freezer Lighting 27%
12. Remodeling 17%
13. Floor Tile 67%
14. Fascia Graphics Package 28%
15. Construction site delivery – Trailers 12%
16. Storage Tanks 8%

These construction bids listed were for new construction sites and resulted in a 9.5% real price reduction from original bid submissions by the general contractors.

If you would like to read my whitepaper titled “Construction Sourcing with eProcurement Tools” please follow the link and go to the bottom of the page, or please contact as SafeSourcing Customer Services associate and ask about our “Risk Free Trail Program”.

Todays post is an oldie from our CEO Ron Southard that’s still pretty accurate

If your retail procurement team understands the procurement lifecycle of a product or service it will make its sourcing much more efficient. Ask one of your teammates to explain their understanding of the retail procurement lifecycle to you. You’ll be surprised as to how many different answers you get.

A good place to begin discussing this subject is in the discovery phase of a procurement engagement. It helps to get everyone on the same page. Surprisingly the process which is quite simple as a definition is not any different from when this author first learned it over 40 years ago in the U.S. Air Force.

Typically procurement consists of seven (7) steps. Where the confusion generally enters is that each step can have a process of its own or be interrelated with another step in the process. An example would be the contract lifecycle that easily fits within the negotiation cycle and the renewal cycle. Another might be that information gathering which is the generally accepted first step in the process can apply to multiple issues such as information gathering for the related product or services such as specifications as well as the information gathering of prospective supplier data.

As such, the simple steps to the procurement lifecycle that most individuals generally agree upon are as follows.

1. Information gathering
2. Supplier contact
3. Background review
4. Negotiation
5. Fulfillment
6. Consumption
7. Renewal

Most times keeping this simple model in mind will allow retail procurement professionals to answer the question; where are we in the process when a project gets stalled or off track?

If you’d like help evaluating your strategy, please contact the Safesourcing team to learn more.