Today?s guest post is by our good friend Eugene Duynstee President and CEO of KPM Enterprises??

Pity the purchasing manager who wants to go to his/her boss and ask for approval on an e-procurement program to support the work they are doing. Typically understaffed and over worked, many senior executives fail to see the potential value of e-procurement. They expect the manager to source goods and services in the usual way and get the best price. How hard can that be? What else could be needed for this?

Naturally the manager would go through the usual process, and when asked, he/she can say that they talked to several suppliers, negotiated the best price, and here it is. So everyone believes they have done their job and secured the best price available.

But in actual fact, if you truly want to go after the best cost for the level of quality and service you need then it does take a different approach and new technology. The purchasing team has the potential to contribute substantially more value to the organization, but only if equipped with the right tools and right process.

This is where e-procurement comes in, and delivers:

? ? State of the art e-auction software that encourages vendors through a reverse auction process to present their actual best price. Interesting that in most cases the incumbent comes in lower than their stated best price and in many cases by a substantial amount.? Studies have shown that this cannot be achieved through the traditional RFP process. With an average savings of 24%, it is hard to justify not using e-procurement.

? ? Better and faster RFPs ? the traditional process is a huge effort ranging from document creation, sourcing vendors, response assessments, recommendations, and award of business. E-procurement can deliver 3-5 times more RFPs than the traditional process in the same amount of time.

? ? Process documentation ? all the activity throughout the process is captured electronically providing not only access anytime, anywhere, but also providing a complete audit trail.

So in fact, e-procurement should be an easy sell. You certainly don?t want your competitors getting that cost advantage while you lose out on it. And when you see so many companies and government organizations (the US is well ahead of Canada on this) adopting the e-procurement process, getting on board only makes sense.

If you?d like to learn more about how SafeSourcing or KPM can help you with your procurement needs, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Account Manager.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today?s Bog is by Ryan Melowic Vice President of Customer Services at SafeSourcing.

Every year we see it as? summer vacations and holidays approach, activity for sourcing events slows down quite a bit.? It is unfortunate to see because; there are so many lost savings opportunities.?? What procurement departments need during vacation season is someone to fill in for their staff that is out of the office.?

SafeSourcing does the heavy lifting on e-procurement events.?? The heavy lifting consists of the following:

1. Providing category knowledge to our customers that help them better understand the trends in the particular markets.
2. Identifying suppliers that are the right fit for each event category.
3. Delivering consistent communications to the vendors.
4. Consolidating and responding to questions during the project.
5. Training for event participants.
6. Support for the participants throughout the live event.
7. Detailed reporting on the e-procurement event.

With all this valuable support, the SafeSourcing team can be your company?s fill in during vacation season.? And, with a fill in, your company?s e-procurement will not slow down during vacation season and maximum savings potentials can be realized.

For further information how SafeSourcing can help your company realize savings twelve months a year, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative to assist you today.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

Today’s Bog is by Ryan Melowic Vice President of Customer Services at SafeSourcing.

Every year we see it as  summer vacations and holidays approach, activity for sourcing events slows down quite a bit.  It is unfortunate to see because; there are so many lost savings opportunities.   What procurement departments need during vacation season is someone to fill in for their staff that is out of the office. 

SafeSourcing does the heavy lifting on e-procurement events.   The heavy lifting consists of the following:

1. Providing category knowledge to our customers that help them better understand the trends in the particular markets.
2. Identifying suppliers that are the right fit for each event category.
3. Delivering consistent communications to the vendors.
4. Consolidating and responding to questions during the project.
5. Training for event participants.
6. Support for the participants throughout the live event.
7. Detailed reporting on the e-procurement event.

With all this valuable support, the SafeSourcing team can be your company’s fill in during vacation season.  And, with a fill in, your company’s e-procurement will not slow down during vacation season and maximum savings potentials can be realized.

For further information how SafeSourcing can help your company realize savings twelve months a year, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative to assist you today.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

Today?s post is by Steve Schwerin, Account Manager here at SafeSourcing

Have you shied away from eProcurement because either you don?t think an individual spend is large enough to make a difference or you don?t want to go it alone?? The old saying about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts has a role even in eProcurement.? Take a second and think about how this concept could help you find savings in procurement.

1. For one, coordinated effort leads to the benefits of scale.? SafeSourcing regularly runs events where multiple customers reap the benefits of going to market with a combined larger spend.
2. Another benefit is that working together offers different things do different companies in different proportions.? Your company may not be buying all the exact items as your partner, but combined the similar items give a vendor the opportunity to offer greater savings to you both than otherwise viable.
3. Collaborating may be exactly what has kept you from seeking different procurement solutions in the first place.? The benefits of working with others may go beyond the simple numbers you initially calculate.? Collaborating in and of itself might be a new procurement strategy, but you may still need a tool and expertise to facilitate the process.
4. Finally, if you are concerned about an impersonal solution, time is revealing that the internet and electronic solutions are anything but impersonal.? They are different and they let us interact in ways that were not possible before due to communication and time barriers

We, here at SafeSourcing, would love to talk to you about how you can collaborate with your partners to all benefit more than you would if you were going it alone.? For more information on how we can help you with your procurement needs or on our ?Risk Free? trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative?or call ?888-261-9070 today.? We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.