What is strategic sourcing & how can it deliver greater savings?

Discover what strategic sourcing is and how you can enhance your sourcing process to can gain greater value from your supply chain
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All businesses need supplies - from stationery, to machinery, to services.

Whatever your business needs, the sourcing process and managing your supply chains can be time-consuming. An efficient sourcing strategy is the ultimate goal when running an effective procurement operation.

Strategic sourcing initiatives are effectively aimed at reducing or eliminating offline/unorganised methods, localised decision making and non-repeatable processes.

Read: Extract more savings from your strategic Sourcing initiatives
 
 

Strategic sourcing to deliver results

Top-performing organisations exploit the latest technologies to conduct more sourcing events and direct a higher proportion of purchases through formal contracts without the need for doubling overhead, jeopardizing quality or increasing exposure to risk.

These organisations combine best-in-class processes with automation to complete the sourcing cycle, inclusive of RFx automation, supplier identification, bidding/negotiation and optimisation tools.
 
They conduct more sourcing activities with a defined and repeatable methodology in mind, and as a result:
e sourcing lösung
Improve supplier co-ordination.


strategisches sourcing software
Gain a clear picture of what is being bought and from whom.


strategisches sourcing systeme
Reduce the amount of labor-intensive manual tasks, and costs.


sourcing softwarelösungen
Standardise the competitive sourcing process.

Five proven ways to transform sourcing

Here are five proven ways you can transform sourcing today if you have the right tools and expertise available:

  • Improvement 1: Manage your sourcing events more efficiently.
  • Improvement 2: Better management of your documents.
  • Improvement 3: Create a level playing field for competitive bidding.
  • Improvement 4: Get multiple quotes.
  • Improvement 5: Remove manual tasks.
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Five proven ways to transform sourcing
 

Strategic sourcing challenges

Sourcing and procurement professionals face enormous pressure to deliver, but face a number of challenges to effectively source for projects:
  • It is difficult to collect requirements from end users and organise them.
  • Effectively dealing with numerous categories, complex services, supplier requirements or relying on inflexible technology can take up a lot of your Procurement teams' time.
  • Preparing for and running fair, effective events is critical.
  • Rules that govern the sourcing process are constantly changing and complex.
  • It is difficult to define and track sourcing processes across your supply chain.
This is where using Sourcing solutions can help your in-house procurement teams.
 
 

With a new sourcing strategy in place, achieving 'best value' from every purchase becomes an everyday reality.

There are five proven ways to transform sourcing today if you have the right tools and expertise available:

  • Sourcing events - when defining and managing each sourcing event is easy, with a sequence of one-time and iterative events and well-defined responsibilities.
  • RFx document manager - when the process of capturing what your colleagues need from suppliers is streamlined and straightforward.
  • Auction manager - when an openly competitive opportunity is the best way to source goods or services.
  • Quick quote manager - when you need a fast and simple way to obtain multiple competitive bids for one-time purchases of well-defined goods and services.
  • Extra resources - finding a partner who can provide managed sourcing services can make the difference when it comes to reducing procurement costs, maximising value and maintaining solid supplier relationships.

Hoyer Group achieves procurement savings through its Source-to-Contract processes with Proactis

“We now have one point of reference for all sourcing project-related information, such as contacts, tender documents, standard library documents, specifications, rating schemes, offer documents etc.”

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Hoyer Group achieves procurement savings through its Source-to-Contract processes with Proactis
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Our experts will guide you through our Sourcing solution and answer all of your questions:
Sourcing FAQs
What is eSourcing?
All businesses need supplies - from stationery, to machinery, to services, and eSourcing is the digital tools and processes used to streamline, simplify and improve strategic sourcing activities and procurement processes to obtain these supplies.
What are the challenges that eSourcing can solve?
Sourcing and procurement professionals face enormous pressure to deliver, but face a number of challenges to effectively source for projects:
  • It is difficult to collect requirements from end users and organise them.
  • Effectively dealing with numerous categories, complex services, supplier requirements or relying on inflexible technology can take up a lot of your Procurement teams' time.
  • Preparing for and running fair, effective events is critical.
  • Rules that govern the sourcing process are constantly changing and complex.
  • It is difficult to define and track sourcing processes across your supply chain.
This is where using eSourcing solutions can help your in-house procurement teams.
How does eSourcing reduce cost?
There are a number of ways that an eSourcing solution can reduce costs. eSourcing provides you with the capability to replicate and automate tasks, enabling professionals to focus more on more value-add tasks. And by speeding up procurement processes, eSourcing tools reduce the total time of a tendering process and limit the time sourcing managers spend on tenders. Additionally, because eSourcing allows you to evaluate a broader range of suppliers and leveraging different eAuction strategies, you can negotiate online with multiple suppliers and keep competition longer in the process.
 
These is just a small sample of how eSourcing can reduce costs. For more information, speak to an eSourcing expert.
Does eSourcing improve compliance?
Market-leading eSourcing solutions ensure consistent compliance with regulatory requirements and guidelines. Additionally, an eSourcing system guides you through the qualification process of suppliers in the fastest and most efficient manner and will, at the same time, capture all relevant data. This will guarantee a transparent and objective process where you can always demonstrate the validity of choices.
Who can benefit from eSourcing software?
Top-performing Procurement professionals exploit the latest eSourcing technologies to conduct more sourcing events and direct a higher proportion of purchases through formal contracts without the need for doubling overhead, jeopardising quality or increasing exposure to risk. This not only benefits the Procurement departments, but the organisation as whole.
 
Read: Extract more savings from your strategic sourcing initiatives
 
What are the benefits of eSourcing and why do I need it?
Strategic sourcing delivers significant savings by streamlining the ongoing, long-term procurement of goods and services. It allows for competitive bidding; ensuring optimal pricing and supplier selection on a wide range of spend categories which results in very large savings when compared to traditional processes.
 
With Proactis' eSourcing software you can obtain best value by improving both strategic and tactical sourcing processes, while dramatically reducing administrative time and effort. eSourcing solutions provide a series of flexible, collaborative, and efficient methods for performing effective eSourcing events, such as complex tender projects, eAuctions and routine quote-based purchases. It enables a structured, transparent, and easily tracked process from expression of need through to final contract award.
 
Read: Five proven ways to transform sourcing
What are RFPs, RFIs and RFQs?
  • A request for proposal (RFP) is a business document that announces a project, describes it, and requests bids from qualified suppliers to complete it.
  • An RFI (request for information) is a formal process for gathering information from potential suppliers of a good or service - intended to be written by customers and sent to potential suppliers.
  • An RFQ (request for quote) is a document that details pricing options for a highly-specific service or product.
eSourcing solutions help organisations develop supplier request documents that effectively express the need, streamlining the processes of publishing them in the form of an RFI, RFP and/or RFQ, evaluating responses, and ultimately awarding the contract.