How do you configure a smart digital sourcing process?

Martin is no stranger to the ins and outs of an organisation: "Of course, you can run a quotation process manually with email and spreadsheets. This is often time consuming, dependent on a single mailbox and the progress of the quotation process is difficult to monitor within a procurement team. It is better to digitise the RFQ process and use an RFQ solution, such as Sourcing. With this, you ensure procurement procedures, including compliancy requirements, and create a more efficient and orderly RFQ process within your team and organisation."

With an RFQ, it is important that the buyer knows what requirements they have for the product or service before the request is sent out. Since procurement needs can basically come from any department in the organisation, there may be several people involved in the process. Availability of RFQ templates, containing appropriate questions including requirements and desired documents (such as certificates), is important to easily and quickly start the RFQ process.  

Martin advises: "Within Sourcing, you have the ability to define RFQ templates with questionnaires and workflows. Of course, this can be changed and supplemented per RFQ. By defining different templates for IT or HRM, for example, RFQ processes can be launched quickly and reviewed by the right people. This defines exactly who needs to answer which questions, which vendors are invited, and you make sure the right people can review the RFQ in advance. The entire process is also logged within such an application. Know exactly what has been done, by whom, at what time and create transparency within the quotation process." 

"When you're emailing back and forth with different suppliers to answer questions about the quote, it's not uncommon to lose track," Maarten acknowledges. Therefore, he recommends: "When you have tender specifications, questions and schedules in one central place, you and your vendor can maintain clarity. Have the supplier answer the RFQ in the Supplier Portal, which is also the place to ask questions. That way you avoid ambiguity about the questions."   Read more about the Supplier Portal in our blog.

Maarten explains: "Because you have your workflows set up in advance, the tendering and answering of the questions as well as assessment of the answers are done by the right people. Of course, you can also share all this information within Sourcing. That way you ensure that the right documents and communications about the supplier are clear to the right people." 

"When evaluating the submitted bid, you can quickly see which supplier is the most suitable option based on the scores for each question," Maarten points out. "For example, if when responding to the RFQ requested documents are not delivered or certain requirements are not met, you may question whether this is the right vendor. The results of the RFQ and supplier experience help you to easily evaluate your suppliers."  

"By requesting the RFQ from different vendors, you gain insight into pricing and the extent to which vendors meet required compliancy rules. You can bring this information back into any contract negotiation and into the final order. Because your template has values attached to the answers, you can share this overview with your team. Together with your colleagues, you can then make an informed decision based on the questionnaire and the final score."  

"During the process, you have answered the questions you received from the vendors on your questionnaire. What you can do now is take those questions for the next RFQ, by adjusting the templates with the feedback that has been gathered. As a result, the process becomes repeatable and you keep optimising the sourcing process to make it more and more efficient, including the required quality, in the future," Maarten concludes.  

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