E-procurement (8) : SafeSourcing Blog

Archive for the ‘E-procurement’ Category

Why do you need to use eProcurement tools like eRFQ’s or Reverse Auctions

Thursday, October 13th, 2022

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

Because of terms like Off-Invoiced Amount which is not a sustainable negotiation tactic

What aggravates me in Business-to-Business supplier/customer negotiations are old tactics like the term off-invoiced amount which are generally not captured properly or sustainable in your ongoing negotiations. The use of eProcurement tools that capture all information from suppliers drives better measurable savings that can be easily tracked across any enterprise.

The term off-invoiced amount is an amount which is reduced to a retailer in return of purchasing specific quantities of goods in a specific period of time to increase the volume of sale to the retailer. Also, an off-invoice amount could be a sales promotion in which the manufacturer offers the retailer a price reduction on the product price at the time of ordering.

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.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions

Can you go to one place to view and access all of your procurement required data?

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

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

Most Procurement knowledge workers I talk to cannot!

SafeDashboard™ is the configurable entry point for companies to view every piece of information and tool that they have access to within the SafeSourceIt™ Portfolio.

Custom fit for every company, and to some extent every role and user within the company, the SafeDashboard™ allows a company to see the information that is most relevant to specific users in a way that does not require them to jump from screen to screen.

KPIs and scorecards can be included to give executives and other procurement knowledge workers an immediate and up to date overview of their overall sourcing event activity within the system.

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

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, Strategic Sourcing

What Educational Offerings does your eProcurement provider offer?

Tuesday, September 13th, 2022

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

SafeSourcing’s 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 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. For more information, please https://www.safesourcing.com/Contact-Us

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions

Event Review Time

Thursday, July 7th, 2022

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

This is step six of the SafeSourceIt™ white glove project plan SaaS offering with the very first item being to Send Vendor Thank You and Customer Survey Links. The reason we return better results that anyone in our space is our thorough and well tested process.

The Event Review Time indicates how much time, beyond the close of the event, that the event host and sourcing partner reserve the right to re-open the event. Also known as the “validation period”, this time is used to review all the details of the event to ensure there were no technical difficulties and /or that the system accepted all quotes, as appropriate. The event review time requires each participant to be available, via telephone, during the event review time. If a participant has not heard from the sourcing partner within this time, then the event is considered closed. The results will be reviewed by the host, who will decide on the award of business.

SafeSourcing is an eprocurement company that operates across multiple industries. As such we have specific experience in almost any commodity, service or capital related spend. Our SafeSourceIt™ white glove project plan continually delivers savings more than 24% greater than you can achieve on your own. To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

Posted in Business Sourcing, E-procurement

The importance of RFx in the Procurement Process – Part I of II

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022

As businesses continue to use reverse auction tools more frequently to reduce their costs and introduce competitive pricing from existing and new suppliers, it is inevitable that the events will also begin to increase in complexity. With complexity comes the need to understand the offerings of the invited companies before price is ever brought up. You need to know that the companies you may be dealing with have experience and can handle your business.

To ensure that the right companies are involved in competing for your business many times it is necessary to run a Request for Proposal or Information (RFP or RFI) to gather information about the suppliers before a pricing event is run. Some of the important things to keep in mind when doing this are:

• Be Specific! – Make sure the RFP/RFI is specific about the types of information requested. Leaving the document open-ended will result in several completely different responses that will be difficult to compare to each other.

• It’s ok to run an RFx for something you have already purchased. Many times, especially in technical product purchasing, the landscape can change so fast from contract to contract that running an RFx is not only a possibly but is probably the wisest thing to do especially if the spend is large and/or the contract is longer than a year.

There will be more tips in my next post but if you would like more information about the SafeSourcing Rfx tools and professional services, please contact a Customer Service Representative today.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools

Are we about to be out of avocados?

Thursday, February 24th, 2022

Today’s post is by Troy Lowe; Vice President of Development at SafeSourcing.

This morning I was listening to the radio show that I usually listen to, and they were joking about the ban on avocados from Mexico. The reason the subject came up is because there was just an awfully expensive commercial that played during the Super Bowl advertising the avocados imported from Mexico. The ban took effect the day before the big game. According to reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Plant Health Inspection (USDA-APHIS) said it was pausing its avocado inspections in Michoacan after one of its officers received a threatening call to his official cell phone. Unfortunately, Michoacan is the only Mexican state that is authorized to export the avocados to the United States. Because of this ban we will now be seeing a shortage of another product here in the states. It is estimated the over 90 percent of the avocados that we use in the U.S. during the winter months come from Mexico. Besides Mexico, we also receive avocados from California, but low rainfall has affected the size of the fruit and the size of the crops. The last time that we saw a shortage of avocados it led to a significant rise in price. If this ban is not lifted soon avocados will become exceedingly rare and awfully expensive, if you can find them. If you find yourself not being able to find avocados, below are some alternatives people use instead.

Smashed Bananas
Hummus
Nut Butters
Raw Seeds
Eggs
Olives
Pesto
Cheese

Interested in learning how SafeSourcing can help your company save money during these and other shortages? If you would like more information on how SafeSourcing can help you, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

Posted in Business Sourcing, E-procurement

Tips To Get More Out from Your RFQ

Wednesday, February 16th, 2022

Today’s post is from Dave Wenig is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing Inc

The purpose of a request for quote (RFQ) is typically to reduce costs. Whether you are trying to get the same product or service at a better price, or you are in need of the best pricing available for a new product or service, an RFQ is one of the best ways to get costs reduced.

More recently, that has been challenging with prices for nearly everything constantly on the rise. So how do the best negotiators find success in a challenging market?

Strategy: This may seem basic, but this is often overlooked. The best buyers have a detailed strategy. At SafeSourcing, we create a strategy for every RFQ we deliver, and we create that based on feedback from the markets, from the customers, from the vendor community, and from our own database of RFQ event history. Write out your strategy if you want to be successful. Be specific.

Reserve Prices: Using on online RFQ process like SafeSourcing’s SafeSourceIt™ eRFx tool likely gives you some interesting options. One of those that has been used more heavily recently is reserve pricing. A buyer can set an unpublished reserve price that indicates to the vendors quoting that the customer has a price point in mind and will not be satisfied if that is not met. Make this part of your strategy upfront for best results and set realistic reserves that are tied to a realistic goal.

Be Realistic: However, you feel about it, prices are significantly higher than they were before. If you had a fixed price contract that you negotiated 2 years ago, you are unlikely to get that same price again now. Do not fall into the trap of setting the parameters for your bid too tightly. An example would be setting a max quote based on your 2-year-old pricing and forcing vendors to sit out because they cannot compete. Again, as part of your strategy, you must consider your current price as well as any price increases you have been notified about or are anticipating. That plus the appropriate markets will guide you toward success.

These are just three tips out of many, and we are always happy to share more. Let us know what types of challenges you face, and we will share some guidance!

For more information, please contact SafeSourcing.

Posted in E-procurement

Communicating the Good eAuction News

Wednesday, February 9th, 2022

An Oldie but goody from our SafeSourcing Archives

While the answer is probably not going to be “I’m going to Disneyland,” the answer from some of the biggest companies in the world, actually because they are the biggest companies in the world, is more surprising than you think.

Companies invest hundreds of hours gathering specifications and employing 3rd party partners to hold RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, and reverse auctions so that, at the end of the day, they can be assured of reducing their costs on the items that they purchase.

Unfortunately, great prices are only good if the rest of the company knows that they should all be ordering from the vendor that guaranteed and was contracted to deliver those low prices.

By not doing so, your company can actually lose money twice; once for the lost savings you could have received but didn’t because the company ordered from other, more expensive companies, and twice because many of these great deals are made on the premise that a certain volume of purchases will be made from that supplier. If that level is not met, worst case scenario is that there will be financial penalties associated with the lack of activity, but you are at least looking at a situation where that vendor will not offer those same discounts again.

Communicating this information is not as difficult of a task as it may seem, so make sure you have a channel for everyone to go to that will let them know what items are affected by these contracts and who they should be purchasing the items from.

Many times, a company will have an intranet that can be used for this purpose. In other cases, you may choose to employ a third party to host this information securely for your company. If the latter is of interest to you, contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative today to speak about the options available to you in this area.

Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, E-procurement

Procurement Planning

Thursday, January 20th, 2022

Today’s blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing.

As companies get the new year underway, there are likely a whole slew of things they are going over, from modified budgets to new processes. One key aspect that should be on everyone’s list are areas to examine for procurement. Setting up a list of 10, 25, 50, or even 100 different product or services that your organization could take a closer look at can be a great jumping off point to begin with your procurement team or procurement partner.

When reviewing the initial list, a procurement team or a procurement partner like SafeSourcing will look at a number of different aspects around those products or services. Price increases are one aspect that can be reviewed and addressed when undergoing a procurement process. Perhaps the incumbent vendors you have worked with for many years has regular price increases built into a contract that grow despite what market conditions do. This is another great reason to have your procurement team review what options you have for sourcing.

If your organization wants to get started with procurement efforts but isn’t sure where to begin or which categories, they should look at first, talk to SafeSourcing. We can analyze your spend and invoices and begin researching areas that would benefit your organization the most – a truly custom fit dependent solely on what your company hopes to gain and fitting your own goals.

When reviewing data, a procurement partner like SafeSourcing can set timelines that are timely, but do not short any essential aspects along the way. Using a procurement partner can free up your own procurement team’s time to focus on other important roles within your company, all while still delivering the service and value you expect from your own.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your procurement efforts, or on our Risk

Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

Posted in E-procurement, Sourcing Strategy

Do you know how a price index plays into e-procurement best practices?

Wednesday, January 5th, 2022

Todays post is a repost by Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Todays post is a little long in the tooth, but still relevant for sourcing professionals.

Being overly simplistic an index is a system used to make finding causal information easier! There are any numbers of indexes or indices available to help procurement knowledge workers insure they are sourcing products at the best possible pricing. The key word here is price as what we will be discussing are specifically price indices.

According to Wikipedia a price index (plural: “price indices” or “price indexes”) is a normalized average (typically a weighted average) of prices for a given class of goods or services in a given region, during a given interval of time. It is a statistic designed to help to compare how these prices, taken as a whole, differ between time periods or geographical locations.

Price indices have several potential uses. For particularly broad indices, the index can be said to measure the economy’s price level or a cost of living. More narrow price indices can help producers with business plans and pricing. Sometimes, they can be useful in helping to guide investment.

Normally an index reflects the current and historical price of a variety of commodities ranging from metals to grain. A common index used in sourcing petroleum products is OPIS or the Oil Price Information Service which you can learn more about by visiting www.opisnet.com. However in order to drive the best possible fuel pricing there are other dependencies such as whether you are doing spot buys or bulk purchases and these strategies will determine what specific index you would want to review as well as it’s relation to other product information sources such as Platts or the Gulf Coast spot assessments. This will put you in a better position to determine how to bid the product and also earn a discount relative to the lowest common denominator.

All other commodities have similar sourcing issues dependant on what the highest cost item is in their product makeup. An example here might be the cost of grain in the feeding of cattle or poultry.

Ask you solution provider to explain these tools to you and to recommend how you might use them toward the best outcome.

If you’d like more information, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Account Manager.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools