Archive for the ‘E-procurement’ Category

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Are you sourcing a new category or cannot find a specification for a current category?

Monday, August 21st, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

Often when speaking with customers and prospects I am asked why SafeSourcing can reduce their current pricing as dramatically as we do.  My fist response to ask how often they source the category. The answers range from annually to every few years or longer. From there I ask them how they keep track of industry changes and evolution. This normally draws a blank look. My answer to them is that categories that they source even annually are evolving every day. Just think about waste removal the transition to a circular economy. What you might source for service today may not be the same as what is available six months from now, and at what cost SafeSourcing may source those categories dozens of times in a year and all of those changes are kept in our The SafeSourceIt™ Event Templates Library and are up to date to the present day. Often these templates are more complete than data the customers have on file.

Our SafeSourceIt™ Event Templates Library is available to customers of SafeSourcing Inc. This library is designed to shorten the process of procuring a variety of not for resale and for resale products by making SafeSourcing’ s best practices tools available to our customers to shorten the amount of work one must do to prepare for quality e-procurement events. For more information or a demonstration of this tool please contact marketing@safesourcing.com.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. These include but are not limited to SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeDocument™ and our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers.

To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

 

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Logistics Category Managers and Buyers. There are savings available out there today.

Thursday, August 10th, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

How is your transportation and logistics category performing during these challenging times? Hopefully not like the above image. This area of your business requires very careful planning and a very clean product and services specifications. SafeSourcing keeps this type of clean information on file for you in our SafeSourceIt™ products and services templates library.

Here are some logistics and transportation categories that we have sourced that have been achieving decent results during the last six months.

  1. Fleet Repair and Maintenance
  2. Trailer Dollies
  3. Tractor Rentals/Purchases
  4. Fuel Carriers
  5. Tractor Leases
  6. Class Eight Truck Tires
  7. Sprinters
  8. Temporary Labor Drivers
  9. Managed Fleet Services
  10. Pallet Programs
  11. Truck Wash Programs
  12. Freight Lines/Shipping Lanes
  13. Yard Tractors
  14. Fleet Titling and Registrations Services
  15. Truck Decaling
  16. Refrigerated Freight
  17. Truck Batteries
  18. Shipping Supplies
  19. 18-Wheeler or Semi-Truck Tires
  20. Roadside Service
  21. Transportation Lanes

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. These include but are not limited to SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeDocument™ and our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers. To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

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Does your eProcurement Provider offer Education Programs?

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

In addition to our education programs discussed below, SafeSourcing also endeavors to do something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of retail e- procurement and supply chain knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed retail wisdom that supports a safer and more eco-friendly global supply chain while driving increased efficiency and improved profitability for our customers and their stakeholders.

Our educational offerings support the SafeSourcing mission of providing information and services to our customers through e-procurement tools that proactively support consumer safety and environmental standards in the global supply chain. SafeSourcing educational offerings encompass the teaching and learning of specific e-procurement skills as regards:

  • Category to Market Strategy
  • Event Set-Up
  • Event Training
  • Supplier Selection
  • Buyer Training
  • Supplier Training
  • Category Discovery
  • Supplier Safety Certifications
  • Supplier Eco Practices
  • ROI Delivery

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. These include but are not limited to SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeDocument™ and our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers.

For more information, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate.

 

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Do you understand the difference between an RFI, RFP and an RFQ?

Thursday, July 27th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

Are you sure what should be considered in each and when to use them.

At SafeSourcing we often use eRFI’s, eRFP’s and eRFQ’s on difficult to source new and existing categories. So, what is the RFP and what does in contain?

The Request for Proposal (RFP) A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document used in sealed or electronic bid procurement procedures through which a purchaser advises the potential suppliers of (1) statement and scope of work, (2) specifications, (3) schedules or timelines, (4) contract type, (5) data requirements, (6) terms and conditions, (7) description of goods and/or services to be procured, and (8) instructions for preparation of technical, management, and/or cost proposals. As an example, government RFPs are publicly advertised and suppliers respond with a detailed proposal, not with only a price quotation. They provide clearly quoted specifications for negotiations after sealed proposals are opened, and the award of contract may not necessarily go to the lowest bidder.2 Breaking down each of these eight pieces of information will help to form an understanding as to whether there is enough detail to move straight to an RFP, thus skipping the Request for Information altogether.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. These include but are not limited to SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeDocument™ and our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers. To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

 

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E-Procurement

Friday, July 21st, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

How does your procurement department define E-Procurement today?

The following is a generally good definition of E-Procurement. However, complete SaaS offered end to end solutions have continued to evolve over the years. Often solutions today are used across multiple solution providers as they can be turned on and turned off and integrated in a truly brief period.

eProcurement is a business to business exchange of goods or services facilitated by the internet. A complete set of e-procurement tools can include products for management of correspondence, bids, questions and answers, previous pricing, contracts and email. Although many Enterprise Resource Planning suites offere-procurementsolutions, the current generation of software is typically purchased on-demand or as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Elements of e-procurement can include request for information (RFI), request for proposal (RFP), and request for quotation (RFQ), which together are categorized as “RFX”.

If you’d like to learn more about SafeSourcing’s additional E-Procurement solutions that are part of our SaaS offered esourcing suite like SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeContract™ and the SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

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Managing Change While Managing Costs

Monday, July 10th, 2023

 

 

Today’s post is our archives at SafeSourcing, Inc.

For our customers, we are primarily focused on delivering cost savings. Generally, in eProcurement, we aim to provide an apples-to-apples comparison so that our customers can make an award decision relatively easily based on the results of an online RFx Event. We do that very well and average over 24% savings. Sometimes, however, our customer is looking to reduce their category costs while also making changes to what it is that they are purchasing.

The good news is that the goals of reducing costs and making a change are not mutually exclusive. While every situation will be different, here is how one customer of ours recently accomplished both goals. The customer, a retailer, knew that they would be phasing out certain plastic products that use regularly. They have a significant annual spend in this category currently. Their goal was to discontinue the use of plastic and switch to alternative products that are more environmentally friendly including biodegradable and reusable options. Because they had carefully planned this change, we were able to develop a plan to work together to manage the change effectively while still taking full advantage of eProcurement tools to reduce costs along the way. Below is a quick summary of how we did this.

  1. Reduce the cost of the current plastic products using a live Request for Quote (RFQ)so they are not overpaying for the remainder of their orders. This generated a substantial savings.
  2. Develop a Request for Proposal (RFP)to attain a better understanding of the specifications, capabilities, and pricing for the alternative products.
  3. Review the RFP results and establish the specifications for the alternative products that would ultimately replace the plastic products.
  4. Host an RFQ to compress the pricing for the alternative products
  5. Test samples for the alternatives, make a decision, and coordinate the roll out of the new products to coincide with the timeline of phasing out the plastic products.

The most important part of this process was the planning. SafeSourcing and the customer coordinated the process and took the steps above in accordance with that plan. In contrast, when we see customers attempt to manage change through the eProcurement process without a plan, we tend to see results that are less impressive. They will likely have savings, and they will likely make a change, but they will not strike the ideal balance between the two.

If you’re interested in learning more about our contract management tool or any of our full suite of Procure to Pay tools,  please contact SafeSourcing

 

 

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What is the benefit of a ranked reverse auction?

Thursday, June 29th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

A tool that can be effective when running a reverse auction is called ranking. While this feature is not used all the time, it can be of strategic importance when trying to get to the best net landed cost for products that have very slim margins at the supplier level. The feature can be set up to let all suppliers know where they rank or a select number of suppliers like the top five (5). The feature can also be turned on for a specific time during the auction like in the last 5 minutes. As an example, you might have tight bidding for a particular commodity-based product. Only the low bid vendor knows that they are indeed the low bid and resultingly is not entering any more price adjustments. If ranking is deployed, vendors can find out if they are 2nd or 3rd etc. and this may entice them to try one more or make multiple more entries if their desire to win the business is strong enough. This is particularly true if the bidding activity has been robust to a point with the low-price indicator switching back and forth between multiple vendors.

It is the deep understanding of markets along with the use of tools like ranking amongst others that are included in strategy reviews with our customers that allows SafeSourcing to regularly exceed customer expectations across all spend areas. Our average annual savings against all categories are more than 24% beyond what you can negotiate on your own.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite.

For more information, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate.

 

 

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A REPOST, Maximize your savings with eProcurement

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Dave Wenig Sr. Vice President Sales, and Services at SafeSourcing Inc.

Now that you are using eProcurement as part of your company’s procure-to-pay initiatives, you will likely want to get the most ROI from the investment and focus on projects that will be the most impactful to the company’s results.

There are two ways I always advise a client to make sure they are able to reach their goals.

First, source as much as you possibly can through RFQ. You are already buying the product or service, so take one last step of making sure the vendors also go through an RFQ process. SafeSourcing will do most of the work to prepare using whatever specifications or requirements you are already using and SafeSourcing will also work with all the vendors. There is not much more you need to do, but the upside for savings potential vs. traditional negotiation is dramatic. Bottom line: the more dollars you put through your RFQ solution, the more savings dollars you will generate.

Second, once you have concluded the RFQ, you will have an opportunity to make sure you are getting the most from that effort. Take that opportunity. In a typical SafeSourcing RFQ, we are going to report on many metrics. Let us just focus on two, All Low Quotes Savings and Low Company Savings. The All-Low Quotes Savings is a figure that if you were able to split the award and offer each item to the lowest vendor, that would be the savings. In RFQs with many items, it is often higher than Low Company Savings. Low Company Savings is a figure that represents the highest overall savings from one vendor. The piece of advice post-RFQ is to do whatever you can to close the gap between Low Company and All Low Quotes to get your award of business as low as is possible. SafeSourcing can help in that stage too.

That is just two tips to maximize your savings, but if you follow these, you will be setting yourself up for success and finishing strong.

For more information, please contact SafeSourcing.

 

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You can still improve gross margin and net earnings substantially in this market.

Monday, June 26th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

Example: Prove me wrong if you think you can!

Assume a $150M Retail Company with industry earnings of just one percent or $1.5M. Additionally cost of goods for this company is 70 percent or $105M. Let’s also assume this company were to only source ten percent of their for-resale COGS or above the gross margin line spend or roughly $11M. With below industry average savings of only ten percent, total savings generated would be $1.1M which is a direct impact to net profitability. If all other segments of the P&L perform to plan and all savings are recovered during the same business calendar year net profitability would increase to $2.6M or a 73% improvement.

NO BS Here! If you don’t believe me, I will be glad to personally sit down with your CEO or CFO and Finance team and prove it to you! Imagine what else you could do to earnings if you also attacked your Expense in the same way.

Companies can begin with SafeSourcing almost immediately (SaaS/Cloud offering) with no risk (Cost Neutral Pilots) and no IT involvement at all, why don’t more companies use eProcurement tools. That’s a great question! Probably because they are embarrassed to not already be getting these results.

If this author were you, I just could not ignore this type of opportunity. If you’d like to learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Account Manager. Or me.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

 

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Why don’t you use Reverse Auctions?

Friday, June 23rd, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

 Understanding a Reverse Auction according to Investopedia

In a reverse auction, the buyer puts up a request for a required good or service. Sellers then place bids for the amount they are willing to be paid for the good or service, with the winner being the seller prepared to accept the lowest amount.

Reverse auctions gained popularity with the emergence of internet-based online auction tools that enabled multiple sellers to connect with a buyer on a real-time basis. Today, reverse auctions are used by large corporations and government entities as a competitive procurement method for raw materials, supplies, and services like accounting and customer service.

Here’s a real simple truth! If you are not using this tool, you are paying way more than you might think. And your team cannot get anywhere near the pricing that reverse auctions generate. I watched a large company yesterday reduce the cost of any office supply category by 31% beyond what they negotiated.

You can view my comments from an earlier post titled Just what do we mean by eProcurement White Glove Services that supports why our savings average over 24% better than what companies can do on their own most of the time.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. That includes our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database  that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers.

To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

 

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