How to Streamline Sourcing from Days to Hours

When you work in procurement, one of the challenges you face is how long sourcing can take.

As procurement is only one step in the supply chain, the last thing you want is to slow down the process, but very often, it can feel like things are out of your control. 

However, you can streamline sourcing and the entire procurement process in many ways. While eSourcing technology is one of the main ways to speed up procurement, there are ways to accomplish this in-house and procedurally, too.

How to Streamline Sourcing: Using the Right Technology

One of the most important tools in recent years for the right management solutions is the development of eSourcing software. With the right technology, you can easily streamline your process. 

At the outset, there may have been a bit of pushback, thinking that software automation may have been taking out the human factor, but this isn’t exactly the case. It simply makes the supply chain move faster and generally keeps everyone—suppliers included—much happier. 

Since eProcurement and eSourcing solutions will most likely be the best ways to streamline processes, you’ll want to look for software that best meets your company’s needs to get the best bang for your buck. 

There is software dedicated to eSourcing solutions by itself, or you may opt for an entire eProcurement suite, which may offer more usefulness to you (such as different features not just unique to eSourcing). 

Generally, eSourcing software includes:

• • An eRFX platform. The X in eRFX stands for information, proposal, and quotation, meaning that you can use this platform to send out RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs using the software. This can also help streamline the award process which can be time consuming for some categories
  • eAuction software. Good eSourcing software will allow you to host different types of auctions, including second round bids with feedback, which we refer to as “SoftAuctions”. 
  • Team collaboration. Many eSourcing tools will make it easier to collaborate with distant colleagues or perform cross functional reviews or screcards.
  • Dashboards. Another value could be for leadership to view all events being performed across the organization on charts and graphs, along with savings generated or spend under management.

How to Streamline Sourcing: Collaboration and Transparency

Another great way to streamline sourcing is the ability to be transparent with your suppliers, and also to be collaborative in such a way so that all information and data is available in one place for everyone to view.

If you have solid eSourcing software or an eProcurement suite, you should likely be able to accomplish both things. Being transparent with your suppliers from the outset builds good relationships from the beginning.

An eSourcing solution saves you both time and effort, so you don’t have to waste time consistently looking for documents in lost folders or find the most recent version of a spreadsheet – the software will always have the most recent copy.

How to Streamline Sourcing: Too Many Chefs in the Kitchen

Another way to streamline sourcing is to centralize it within a core group that would assist others in running their events. A common successful strategy is to have a core group of individuals that help procurement people from around the company execute their sourcing events.

This strategy makes it possible for the majority of procurement people to utilize the central team for best practices while still managing their local spend. This approach can be audited easily and makes it possible to standardize how a company goes to market in their sourcing process. In the end, having experts in a central location will also help to streamline sourcing and speed up your procurement process.

To learn more about how you can streamline sourcing or eSourcing software that can help your procurement process, contact EC Sourcing Group today at 973-936-9672 to schedule a discovery call.

We want to help you rethink and reimagine procurement.