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

Striving for improvement within an organization is essential for any company to strengthen and grow, but many times it can be difficult to discern where to begin. First knowing what to improve is the first step, but where does that idea come from?

Employee feedback – We all hope that our organizations breed open and honest communication, but unfortunately openly expressed concerns from employees doesn’t always happen. Reaching out to employees for their feedback on the their workload, daily duties, management styles, and work-life balance can not only help to ease the concerns of an individual employee, but can forewarn an organization of potential problems other employees may face. Addressing employee concerns can help to stabilize and strengthen the core of a business, encouraging teamwork and comradery.​

Customer feedback – Listening to customers is another important aspect of any business. If something happens with a customer base, the impact can hit the pocket of an organization hard. This kind of feedback can be found through comment cards, email, toll-free numbers, online surveys, and even customer interviews. It can be essentially important in business to find and address customer concerns before a customer decides to go elsewhere.

Research – Another great way to learn where an organization can use improvement is to look for outside sources. This can mean looking at processes of other organizations and determining if that process is something that could be implemented in your business, and whether it would have a positive or negative overall effect on both customers and employees. In addition to other organizations, looking at upcoming technologies and research can help a business not only stay up to date, but also ease the burdens on employees and customers alike.

While each method of obtaining information and ideas for improvement are instrumental in a growing business, utilizing all three methods will ultimately generate the most knowledge. Seeking feedback is essential in keeping employees, customers, and everyone else happy with an organization because without the knowledge, you would never know how far you could go.

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can help your organization, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative.

We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

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.