Category Archives: Procurement Innovation

Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P31) … Time for Invoice-to-Pay

When we started in Part 1, we noted that even though all core sourcing and procurement technologies have been available for twenty (20) years (although it is debatable just how good the initial versions of many of these applications were) … the majority of organizations still do not have what any modern analyst would consider reasonable support for the full, core, source-to-pay process.

However, now that inflation is back with a vengeance, anticipated savings is leaking faster than a bald spigot, and most organizations are in a cash crunch as a result of down sales during the pandemic (and now due to a lack of core inventory to sell), they need to update their procurement tech stack fast.

But, and this is the kicker, they can’t do it all at once. We went into a lot of the details as to why, but, basically:

  • the applications don’t work without data … and don’t work well without LOTS of data … clean, organized, enriched data … (that you don’t have now and won’t have for a while)
  • the applications don’t deliver without user training …
  • you need value out of the gate to justify the purchase … and good luck getting enough value to justify the license cost of an entire suite!
  • your users need to see results for them to adopt … and use … a solution long term

So, you need to figure out where to start. And after three posts, we figured it out — e-Procurement. We then spent a few posts discussing the need for e-Procurement, the benefits, the barriers to e-Procurement (which were not what you think), and providing you with a large list of vendors. But then we had to step back and figure out what came next again because, depending on the particular situation at hand, there were good arguments for contract management, spend analysis, strategic sourcing, and supplier management (but not invoice-to-pay). It took quite a bit of analysis, and the answer was spend analysis because, even if all things seemed equal, or one solution looked more attractive than another, spend analysis could identify the (biggest) opportunities and the solution best suited to the most / biggest opportunities, and so spend analysis always made the most sense to adopt after e-Procurement.

After that, it was difficult. But, if all opportunities are equal, or there is no one to do the thorough spend analysis that can help differentiate the savings opportunities that can be enabled by each S2P module, there still has to be a best choice for what’s next. And that was … Supplier Management. The reason? Just like you needed to get your spend data captured for everything to function (which is what e-Procurement does), no matter what you’re doing, you’re interacting with suppliers, so you need to manage them effectively.

Then it was easier. Even though you technically need to find the products and services before you contract for them, the reality is that you are already buying products and services, you already have contracts, and chances are you can’t find most of those contracts when you need them, don’t know what the obligations and deliverables are for anything that’s not available through the e-Pro catalog, and don’t even know the pricing, permitted price escalations, etc. Furthermore, most organizations without a modern CLM don’t know how many evergreen contracts they have, when they automatically renew if not terminated or renegotiated by that date, when key contracts they need are expiring, and so on. Nor do they understand just how much excess manual effort and time the organization is taking to re-negotiate existing or negotiate new contracts. They are also completely unable to do a proper analysis of existing payment terms, key risk clauses that are required for a new regulation, and so on.

Contract Management may not identify any big opportunities, but without a good, enforceable, contract that can be easily monitored throughout its lifetime, the reality is that the identified savings will likely never materialize. Thus, Contract Management was key to have in place before you started strategically sourcing, as you want to immediately turn the bids into contract terms before the process disconnect from not having a good CLM solution causes bids to be retracted “because they were only good for 15 days” or some other excuse a supplier will come up with to not honour a bid. And then it was time for e-Sourcing, the ora et labora of the savings-focussed part of the Source-to-Pay process, and the ORA in particular: Optimization, RFX, and e-Auctions.

And now that we’ve finally covered all the core upstream modules, and e-Procurement, there’s just one left, the one that comes after e-Procurement and the one we skipped because it’s relative value was limited compared to the other solutions (when you consider that any e-Procurement solution worth its price can accept and store invoices and do some minimalistic processing). This isn’t to say there isn’t value in the solution, as a good I2P solution will greatly increase invoice-processing and payment-related efficiency, reduce the manpower needed for 100% invoice verification, and enable financing and global trade. Furthermore, a great I2P solution will also enable other value-generation capabilities the organization wouldn’t have otherwise. In fact, over time, it will become one of the more valuable solutions since one analysis, sourcing, supplier management, and contract management take the waste out of the process and your organization becomes a Source-to-Pay leader, the key to maintaining S2P value will be efficiency and 100% capture and compliance. That’s why no Source-to-Pay implementation is complete without a modern invoice-to-pay/accounts payable module, and why you must implement it even if the initial estimated ROI is considerably less than the other solutions.

But what should you look for? And why? That’s the subject of our next part where we’ll break down the core in Part 32.

Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P30) … And Sourcing IS Very Extensive … So Here Are 75 e-Sourcing Companies to Check Out!

And now the next post you’ve all been waiting for! A partial, starting, list of 75 e-Sourcing providers that may (or may not) meet some, or many, of the core baseline capabilities we outlined in the last three parts of this series (Part 27, Part 28, and Part 29) as we discussed the Optimization, RFX, and Auction sides of e-Sourcing today.

As with our lists of e-Procurement Companies (in Part 7), Spend Analysis Companies (in Part 12), Sacred Cow Companies that do, or support, customized “spend” analysis on Marketing, Legal, and SaaS (in Part 13), Supplier Management Companies (in Part 20), and Contract Management Companies (in Part 25), we must again give our disclaimer that this list is in no-way complete (as no analyst is aware of every company), is only valid as of the date of posting (as companies sometimes go out of business and acquisitions happen all of the time in our space), and does NOT include any e-Procurement vendors that support simple requisition or quick-quote capability to select vendors already in the system as that is not how we defined RFX capability.

Furthermore, as we’ve said before, not all vendors are equal, and we’d venture to say NONE of the following are equal. The companies below are of all sizes (very small to very large, relative to vendor sizes in our space), cover the baseline differently (in terms of percentage of features offered, the various degrees of depth in the feature implementations, and differing levels of customization for a vertical), offer different additional features, have different types of service offerings (backed up by different expertise), focus on different company sizes, and focus on different technology ecosystems (such as plugging into other platforms/ecosystems, serving as the core platform for certain functions or data, offering a plug-and-play module for a larger ecosystem, focussing on the dominant technology ecosystem(s) in one or more verticals), etc.

Do your research, and reach out to an expert for help if you need it in compiling a starting short list of relevant, comparable, vendors for your organization and its specific needs. For some of these vendors, good starting points can again be found in the Sourcing Innovation archives, Spend Matters Pro, and Gartner Cool Vendor write-ups if any of these sources has a write-up on the vendor.

Finally, a second reminder that inclusion on this list DOES NOT imply Sourcing Innovation is recommending the vendor.

Company LinkedIn
Employees		 HQ (State)
Country		 Optimization RFX Auction
Aestiva 17 California, USA R
Archlet 46 Switzerland O R
Aufait 114 India R
Bamboo Rose 205 Massachusetts, USA R
Bideg 3 Turkey A
Bonfire 87 Ontario, USA R
Claritum 8 United Kingdom R
Cloudia 40 Finland R
Cobblestone Software 131 New Jersey, USA R
Corcentric 588 New Jersey, USA R
cosmoONE 20 Greece R A
Coupa 3674 California, USA O R A
Deep Stream 25 United Kingdom R A
Delta eSourcing ?? United Kingdom R
ebidToPay ?? Bavaria R
Elcom 18 United Kingdom R A
eSupplier 6 Dubai R A
FairMarkit 161 Massachusetts, USA R
FullStep 128 Spain R
GEP 4650 New Jersey, USA O R A
Intenda 111 South Africa R
Ion Wave 22 Missouri, USA R A
ISPnext 59 Netherlands R
Ivalua 849 Ivalua O R A
Jaggaer 1266 North Carolina, USA O R A
K2 Sourcing 10 Wisconsin, USA R A
Keelvar 117 Cork, Ireland O R A
LevaData 58 California, USA O R
LGX Corporation ?? North Carolina, USA O R
LiveSource 7 Georgia, USA R
loopio 304 Ontario, Canada R
Market Dojo 34 United Kingdom R
MarketPlanet 72 Poland R A
Medius 562 Sweden R A
Merlin Sourcing 29 Germany R A
MySupply 15 Germany O R
NegoMetrix (Mercell) ?? Netherlands R A
Newtron 54 Germany R A
Oalia 22 France R
Oboloo 6 United Kingdom R
One Market (LogicSource) 307 Connecticut, USA R
One More Source ?? Bulgaria R
Onventis 129 Germany R A
Pantavanij 213 Thailand A
Penny Software 35 Saudi Arabia R
PostRFP ?? United Kingdom R
PratisPro (SabancıDx) ?? Turkey R A
Proactis 557 United Kingdom R
ProcurementFlow 5 Estonia R
ProcurePort 8 Indianapolis, USA R A
ProcureWare (Bentley Systems) 4830 Pennsylvania, USA R
Prokuria 8 Romania R A
Promena 20 Turkey R A
Prospeum 6 Germany R
Raindrop 27 Raindrop R
Ready Contracts 243 Australia R
RFP360 20 United States R
SafeSourcing 10 Arizona, USA R
SAP (Ariba) 2963 California, USA O R A
ScanMarket (Unit4) 60 Denmark R A
ScoutRFP 44 California, USA R A
Serex Procurement Solutions ?? Ontario, Canada R
Simfoni (EC Sourcing) 260 California, USA O R A
Sorcity ?? Texas, USA R A
SourceDogg 31 Ireland R
Sourcing Force 4 Ontario, Canada R A
SupplyFrame 310 California, USA R
SupplyOn 239 Germany R A
Synertrade 180 Germany R
TenderEasy (Alpega) 6 Sweden R
The Green RFP ?? Texas, USA R
Trade Interchange 27 United Kingdom R A
Vendorful 14 New York, USA R A
Vortal 188 Portugal R A
Zycus 1464 New Jersey, USA R A

And now, as you probably guessed, it’s on to Invoice-to-Pay in Part 31.

Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P29) … Breaking down the ORA of Sourcing, Concluding with Optimization

In our first post, Part 26, we noted that, after covering e-Procurement, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, and Contract Management, it was finally time for Strategic Sourcing. When it comes to Sourcing, we have to deal with the ORA et labora. The work, and the prayer (that it gets the results we want). But at least when it comes to the prayer, we have three tools at our disposal:

  • Optimization
  • RFX
  • Auction

In Part 27 we started with the most classic sourcing tool, RFX, where RFX stands for Request for X, where X could be Bid, Information, Proposal, Quote, etc. depending on the depth of response required and the terminology used in the industry and geography the RFX is being issued in.

Then, in our last post, Part 28, we continued with the primary alternative to RFX, e-Auction. In e-Auction, instead of asking for quotes which will be reviewed in a long, detailed, often weighted process, you’re asking for real-time quotes in an online auction where you can update your bids until you self-select to drop out.

The last tool at our disposal, which does require bids to be collected first (which does not need to be through RFX or e-Auction but can be done through every buyer’s favourite tool, Excel), is strategic sourcing decision optimization. It’s not used nearly enough considering that it will practically always identify a lower cost scenario, and even if you find the lowest cost scenario impractical, you understand exactly how much more a relationship is costing you and you are quantifying how much a better relationship, better quality, lower risk is worth to you and can make more informed, and better, decisions in the future.

BASIC

Pillar #1: Solid Mathematical Foundations
The algorithms used must be sound (mathematically correct in all situations) and complete (capable of analyzing all possible solutions). An optimization engine based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) would qualify as hybrid simplex approaches will provably converge on an optimal answer given sufficient time (and one can always compute a maximum distance from optimal based upon the calculations done to date since the longer the algorithm churns for, the more the lower bound on the optimal solution increases). In contrast, the application of many heuristic, simulation, or evolutionary approaches are likely not valid since the majority of these techniques do not guarantee full exploration of the potential solution space and, therefore, aren’t guaranteed to find the true optimal solution (although they may get close).

Pillar #2: True Cost Modelling
The model must allow you to define the full cost model, not just one (or two) fixed costs. For example, if a buyer is sourcing direct material, the platform must allow the buyer to include all indirect and incurred costs, such as freight, tariff, storage, processing, and marketing differential costs in the definition of the cost model.

Pillar #3: Sophisticated Constraint Analysis
The model must allow the buyer to build a model that capture a realistic approximation of real world constraints. If the business must select at least 2 suppliers, will not accept a product mix with an average quality or reliability of less than 8 (/ 10), if a supplier has a maximum capacity, or if a minimum allocation must be given to an incumbent because of a contract still in play, all this needs to be captured.

A strategic sourcing decision optimization platform must support four core constraint types. Capacity constraints that define a supplier (‘s location) capacity limit. An allocation constraint that defines a minimum or maximum allocation to a supplier (group) based upon existing contracts or business policies. Risk Mitigation constraints that ensure that business policies on supplier or geographic splits designed to reduce risk are captured. Qualitative constraints that allow for qualitative ratings such as reliability, quality, relative sustainability, etc. on a mathematical (e.g. 1 to 10) scale to be defined.

Pillar #4: What If Capability
The platform must support the creation of multiple what-if scenarios, each with different constraints. Buyers should be able to create them from scratch, or as modified copies of existing what-if scenarios.

Out-of-the-Box Scenarios
The solution should contain multiple out of the box scenario definitions, including unconstrained, x-supplier, incumbent, etc. that automatically generate these what-if scenarios for the bids being evaluated for optimization.

Scenario Comparison
The solution must contain a built-in capability for (side-by-side) scenario comparison that allows a buyer to easily see the cost differentials and get a feeling for what each scenario is costing them.

ADVANCED

Integrated Analytics
Optimization models take exponential time to solve. While small models can solve in minutes, and even seconds, on a high powered multi-core machine, large models can take hours or days. The key to rapid model solution is minimizing model size. This can often be done by way of a preliminary analysis that determines that some supplier bids are just to high to ever be acceptable, some qualitative factors too low to ever be acceptable, and some supplier locations are in geographic regions that are just too risky. Eliminating award possibilities that will never be made can drastically decrease model size and solution time.

Constraint Relaxation
If a model is unsolvable, but could be solved by solved with lesser constraints, the platform should be able to identify which (near) minimal constraint set is preventing a solution and identify which (minimal) relaxations would allow a solution and present those to the user, who can accept them, or use that as input for defining an alternate relaxed model that may permit a solution. (Remember best practice is to prioritize constraints and add them incrementally until the model becomes unsolvable as that allows you to always choose the least important constraints to relax for solvability.)

Sensitivity Analysis
In optimization, a sensitivity analysis tells you how dependent a solution is on a certain constraint and what the impact of removing the constraint that is currently preventing a lower cost solution in terms of hard dollars. (For example, insisting an incumbent supplier get 50% of the award might be costing you $10 Million in a $100 Million category, while reducing the minimum to 25% might only cost you $2 Million [as it the supplier is more competitive on some products than others].)

Hard and Soft Constraints
The platform should allow you to define constraints as hard and soft. When a model is unsolvable and needs to be relaxed, the solution will only allow soft constraints to be relaxed. Furthermore, it should also allow for an indication of when a soft constraint can be relaxed. For example, average quality can only be reduced from 9 to 8 if the savings increases by at least 3%.

Integrated Freight Model Support
In addition to supporting true cost modelling, the platform should also have built in freight models that understands transport types and modes (truck vs rail, refrigerated vs dry, etc.) and allow for the easy definition of complex freight models when those models might allow for overall lower costs of ownership when carrier bids are also included in the model.

Of course, this is not a complete list of what a strategic sourcing decision optimization platform might have, or necessarily should have, as systems continue to improve, but a baseline of what they must have to be considered a modern solution.

Next up: the vendor list in Part 30.

Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P28) … Breaking down the ORA of Sourcing, Continuing with (e-)Auctions

In our first post, Part 26, we noted that, after covering e-Procurement, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, and Contract Management, it was finally time for Strategic Sourcing. When it comes to Sourcing, we have to deal with the ORA et labora. The work, and the prayer (that it gets the results we want). But at least when it comes to the prayer, we have three tools at our disposal:

  • Optimization
  • RFX
  • Auction

Yesterday, in Part 27, we started with the most classic sourcing tool, RFX, where RFX stands for Request for X, where X could be Bid, Information, Proposal, Quote, etc. depending on the depth of response required and the terminology used in the industry and geography the RFX is being issued in.

The primary alternative to RFX is e-Auction. In e-Auction, instead of asking for quotes which will be reviewed in a long, detailed, often weighted process, you’re asking for real-time quotes in an online auction where a supplier can update its bids until it self-selects to drop out of the auction.

BASIC

Lot Configuration
Just like surveys were so fundamental and obvious for an RFX solution that you’d think we shouldn’t even need to mention it, lots are so necessary to e-Auctions that we shouldn’t have to mention it either. But while you should trust a solution has configurable lots, you should always verify you can configure and manipulate the lots to suit your needs and your preferred lotting structures for category-based auctions.

Saved Market Baskets
Just like an RFX should support templates so you don’t have to re-create a survey from scratch every time, the e-Auction platform should allow you to define saved market baskets which represent pre-defined lots that can quickly be adjusted as need to set up events quickly. If a category is always sourced in a similar fashion, and the products / services the organization sources don’t change much over time, then a senior buyer should be able to pre-define a market basket for quick lot initiation.

Multiple Auction Types
There are multiple types of auctions — and the system should support a number of formats that may include standard reverse, sealed-bid, reserve-price, fixed price, Japanese, Brazilian, Vickrey, English, Dutch, and Yankee.

Supplier-Specific Views
A supplier should only see the lots they are invited to bid on, should only see the public messages and private messages sent to them, should see everything in a view localized to them, and so on.

Substitution Support
Sometimes a supplier has multiple products that can meet a buyer’s need, or sometimes has an alternate SKU that they believe would also work for the buyer (that requested a specific SKU be bid on) that the supplier could provide at higher quantity, higher quality, or lower cost that the supplier would also like to present. The platform should allow a supplier to define one or more substitutions for each product in a lot that the buyer can choose to consider, or not.

Proxy Support
The internet, like any other system, is not perfect — routers can fail, lines can be cut, providers can temporarily go offline, and so on — it’s as fault tolerant as anything we’ve ever designed in tech, but that doesn’t mean everyone has access all the time. A supplier should be able to define a lead bidder and multiple, ordered, proxies who can take over if the lead bidder cannot connect, or loses connection. The system should allow multiple proxies to be logged in at the same time, but only the lead bidder, or, in the lead bidder’s absence, the highest ranking proxy should be able to bid and every other proxy should be view only.

Messaging
The system must support real time chat with each supplier bidder who has a question as well as group-based broadcast messaging.

ADVANCED

Formula-Based Pricing and/or Bid Modification
Just like a modern RFX solution should support should-cost models, a modern e-Auction solution should support formula based pricing to allow for easy bidding during a short-time frame auction. For example, reduce all bids by 1%, the product cost is x + y% of the current commodity cost for steel per ounce (as the supplier will be buying steel at market price), etc.

Extensive Formatting
An auction, especially one with a short time-frame, needs to be extremely comprehensible to the supplier. As a result, the solution should support extensive formatting so the supplier display can be designed to be as comprehensible, and if necessary, as minimal as possible. This goes beyond just matching a colour scheme, but altering table formats, graphs, defining alternate views, and so on.

Asynchronous Real-Time Graphical Views
If there are lot of items in the lot, or a lot of suppliers in the auction, it can be difficult to understand tabular bids, assuming the bid is not blind, even if the tables are modified to tell a supplier their rank (and some indication of how much they have to bid to go up a rank). It’s often easier for a supplier to understand the current bid situation with a graph, that should automatically update after every bid.

Real Time Supplier Connectivity Monitoring
The platform should continuously monitor whether a bidder is (still) online. Due to the fact that the internet is not perfect, a bidder could lose connection at any time. The platform needs to detect this and if a bidder drops, automatically invite and promote a proxy, and if multiple bidders drop, assume there is a major connectivity problem and suspend the auction for a predefined time, or until the buyer selects a new time.

Constraint Support
A modern e-Auction platform should also support the definition of constraints on the bidding. Minimum decrements, floors, all or nothing on lots, and so on.

Of course, this is not a complete list of what an e-Auction platform might have, or necessarily should have, as systems continue to improve, but a baseline of what they must have to be considered a modern e-Auction solution.

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, now it’s time for “O” in Part 29.

Source-to-Pay+ is Extensive (P27) … Breaking down the ORA of Sourcing, Starting with RFX

In our last post, Part 26, we noted that, after covering e-Procurement, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, and Contract Management, it was finally time for Strategic Sourcing. When it comes to Sourcing, we have to deal with the ORA et labora. The work, and the prayer (that it gets the results we want). But at least when it comes to the prayer, we have three tools at our disposal:

  • Optimization
  • RFX
  • Auction

Today we’ll start with the most classic sourcing tool, RFX, where RFX stands for Request for X, where X could be Bid, Information, Proposal, Quote, etc. depending on the depth of response required and the terminology used in the industry and geography the RFX is being issued in. So what is RFX? What must it do? We’ll break down the basics in this post.

BASIC

Surveys
This is so fundamental and obvious that you’d think we shouldn’t even need to mention it, but we do. The platform has to support the creation of arbitrary surveys, using all of the standard HTML form elements (check boxes, multi-select, text boxes, etc.), and allow them to be created in sections that can be mandatory or optional, depending upon what the supplier is bidding on, and re-used as needed.

Cost Breakdowns / Should Cost Modelling
In the beginning, back in 1995, man didn’t know that we should use TCO, for savings strive; ERP had the parts; but spreadsheets had the bids; no one new what they was gonna do; but FreeMarkets had the news; they said “let there be web”; there was web; “let there be bids”; there were bids; “let their be portals”‘ there were portals; “oh, let their be SaaS”. And it was great. But unit costs, and even landed costs, weren’t reminiscent of the full costs associated with a buy. And even worse, it didn’t give you any insight into why a product cost what it cost.

When sourcing expensive, or complex products, if you’re trying to understand the cost, it’s not average, or lowest bid, it’s what the product costs to make, plus a fair margin. This is why cost breakdown bidding / should cost modelling capability is key to understand the cost baseline.

Templates
Having to setup an RFX from scratch every time is very time consuming and unnecessary if the RFX you need is (almost) the same as an RFX for the last product you sourced in the category. That’s why it’s critical that the platform support templates that can be used to instantiate RFX events and then modified as needed to publish the event. The organization should be able to create as many templates as they want, and even create templates off of templates (adding detail and complexity as categories warrant).

Workflow
The platform must include basic workflow support, which should be configurable to the needs of the organization and the type of event — single round, double round; sealed envelope, blind; etc. This is especially critical for the public sector which must meet strict requirements in its call for bids in many countries.

Excel Support
The platform must support every buyer’s, and supplier’s, favourite tool, Excel, for RFX completion. Specifically, any supplier, or the buyer on behalf of any supplier, must be able to export the entire RFX to Excel, fill out the Excel spreadsheet, and then upload it into the system. While one may think this is not as critical now that broadband is more ubiquitous, there are many suppliers whose sales people are not very technologically proficient and still not comfortable using modern platforms, being used to bidding in Excel for years (and years).

Reporting
The platform must support basic report(build)ing capability that will allow a buyer to build the appropriate side-by-side comparison reports as well as custom reports by supplier, product, lot, and so on. Unless the platform supports some basic capability, it will be impossible for a buyer to identify an award.

Award Creation
Once a buyer has identified the award they want to make, the buyer must be able to mark the award, store it, associate custom reports that demonstrate the savings (and costs), create notes as to rationale for the award (especially if it is not the lowest cost award), link to associated documentation, and if the organization has SXM and/or CLM modules (or systems), link to the appropriate supplier records and contract(s) in those systems.

Real Time Management
It should be possible to manage the RFX, and process, as necessary at any time. While this doesn’t require the same “real-time” nature as an e-Auction system might require for a 30 minute auction, it must be possible to pause, and if necessary extend, the RFX at anytime if an issue is discovered, add documentation and details when a supplier question indicates a weakness in the documentation, and even modify the lots if it is discovered that items were overlooked or substitutions can be permitted.

ADVANCED

Integrated Optimization
A great RFX solution will integrate with the strategic sourcing decision optimization module, automatically run an unconstrained scenario, highlight the lowest cost award; automatically run a scenario with just the current suppliers, highlight the lowest cost award for an award to the current supply base; and automatically run a min 2/max 3 supplier scenario, with each supplier getting at least 20%, highlight the lowest cost award in a risk mitigation scenario; and then show a side-by-side comparison across those 3 scenarios (or organizational tweaks to these defaults) to help a buyer understand the cost differential between different options so they can optimize price vs. quality vs. risk vs. other factors of interest in an informed fashion.

Sourcing Strategy Enabled Dynamic Workflows
A basic solution should support standard, somewhat configurable, workflows, but those will be rather rigid once the RFP is launched. A more advanced solution will allow the organization to define different sourcing workflows based upon current market conditions (supply vs. demand, current bids, potential supply base, etc.), differentials between first round bids and the prices the organization is currently paying, potential supply base shifts, and so on and, after the first round is complete, shift to a second round RFX, push to an e-Auction, or divert to strategic negotiations with the incumbent (or a new supplier that is significantly more appropriate for the buyer under the current situation), as appropriate. While such functionality may not be capable of being used in the public sector, it’s perfectly fine in the private sector, especially if you tell your bidders up front it will be a multi-round process and, based upon the first round, there may be a second round, or you may go straight to negotiations with the leading supplier(s).

Bill of Materials (BoM)
While not strictly necessary for an RFX to support a multi-level bill of materials, especially since it could be flattened into a lot, if the organization sources direct on a regular basis, then the RFX should support multi-level bill of materials, as well as allow suppliers to bid at any level they want to.

Enhanced Globalization
The platform should support multi-currency, multi-language, and be fully localizable to any supplier, including support for auto-translation of documents as required. The platform should even support customized workflows and input screens tailored to the suppliers based upon their region, their requirements, and the workflows that work for them.

Market Intelligence
A good RFX platform will integrate with market intelligence sources that give you current commodity pricing, average pricing from public sector contracts, average on-line pricing, and/or average GPO savings to help a buyer understand how good, or bad, the quotes are that they are getting.

Automation
A modern sourcing platform will also support rules-based automation, and will allow a multi-round event to run on auto-pilot all the way from launch to award recommendation, with the exception of the buyer possibly having to answer a few supplier questions. For example, if the RFX was defined as a 2 round RFX with only the top 5 initial responses going into the 2nd round, if the weightings for the responses are predefined, the system will automate the closure of the first round, launching of the second round, and the identification of the recommended award based upon the sourcing strategy defined (dual-source, 80/20, price vs. non-price factor weightings, etc.)

Of course, this is not a complete list of what an RFX platform might have, or necessarily should have, as systems continue to improve, but a baseline of what they must have to be considered a modern RFX solution.

Onward to the “A” in Part 28.