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

Assess your Sourcing process
 
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/unorganized methods, localized decision making and non-repeatable processes.

Read: Extract more savings from your strategic Sourcing initiatives

Strategic sourcing to deliver results

Top-performing organizations 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 organizations combine best-in-class processes with automation to complete the sourcing cycle, inclusive of RFx automation, supplier identification, bidding/negotiation and optimization tools
They conduct more sourcing activities with a defined and repeatable methodology in mind, and as a result:
  • Improve supplier co-ordination.
  • Standardize the competitive sourcing process.
  • Make it easier for employees to use existing agreements.
  • Gain a clear picture of what is being bought and from whom.
  • Reduce the amount of labor-intensive manual tasks.
  • And ultimately…reduce costs.

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 organize 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 and  Strategic Managed Sourcing Services can help your in-house procurement teams.

Companies using electronic sourcing methods have achieved significant annual savings:
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.

Extend your team with added capacity, specialist strategic services and proven best practices


A reliable strategic Managed Sourcing Services team can provide access to category-specific experts, along with technology and recommendations needed to keep your sourcing and supply chain running smoothly and competitively.

Additional resources, support and expertise will help you streamline your procurement and gain greater value from your supply chain. By partnering with the right managed sourcing partner, you’ll see repeatable and sustainable results much more quickly than with a traditional approach to Sourcing.

Learn how you can use seasonal strategic sourcing to make an impact
Sourcing solutions
Sourcing Streamline, standardize and enhance all aspects of your strategic sourcing process
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Managed Sourcing Services Streamline procurement and gain greater value across more categories in less time
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Reverse Auctions for Strategic Sourcing Improve your bidding and purchasing process to achieve the best possible price price and value
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Assessment tool
A practical first step to assessing your Source-to-Contract process
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News
Proactis recognized in Gartner's 2020 Market Guide for E-Sourcing Applications
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