Outlining Your Goals

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Vendor management begins with the sourcing process. It is important to outline your expectations and requirements for doing business upfront. High quality sourcing software can help with this process as well as increase your efficiency, productivity and organization.

One of the most important components of the bidding process is to properly outline your goals and objectives so vendors are able to provide accurate and detailed responses. The first step is understanding what your organization needs from vendors. Unless you spell it out and provide this information to vendors, vendor management may be difficult. As with employees, vendors must know what is expected of them so that they may react accordingly.

In order to obtain the detailed responses that allow your organization to make fully informed decision, it is important that your RFP includes:

  • An overview of your organization, its mission and the organization’s projects or products for background and insight.
  • The goals for the project or product outlined in detail.
  • The specifications for the project of product. This should also include important dates. If there areas where the potential vendor should make suggestions or provide guidance, those areas should be outlined so all vendors have the same understanding.
  • Your organization’s formatting requirements for the proposal. This ensures that your organization does not lose efficiency during the sourcing process due to evaluating multiple formats.
  • Detailed information on the timeline for receiving, analyzing and rewarding the project or product.

EC Sourcing Group offers a number of sourcing options to make sourcing more efficient and more effective for your organization. Their Sarbanes Oxley compliant solution, FlexRFP provides a number of features that make the bidding process easily organized and acted upon. FlexRFP makes vendor management easier with the following:

  • Comprehensive bid templates that can be customized in any format and font for ease of use and adaptability to the needs of your organization.
  • Setup in less than five minutes for quick quotes
  • Survey and questionnaire capabilities with available scorecard reporting
  • Templates may be customized and saved, allowing for them to be reused rapidly and efficiently
  • The ability to group information and tag projects and suppliers with key words
  • Suppliers are able to self-register
  • An Excel friendly interface, data may be uploaded from or downloaded to Excel in an easy to follow format
  • Ease of use for both vendors and purchasers

The above allows FlexRFP to increase the effectiveness of vendor management by providing the following:

  • An average savings of 18%
  • Workflow efficiency and productivity savings of 40 to 60%
  • Transparency during the bidding process
  • Sarbanes Oxley compliant backup information
  • A familiar, Excel like format, that is easily accessed online
  • Project management status and communications exchange allowing for the free flow of information
  • Enhanced reporting capability, data collection and analysis for improved vendor management

For additional information on FlexRFP or to learn more about how EC Sourcing Group can assist with your vendor management, contact them today. Their team is comprised of sourcing experts with years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies. Their expertise and professional experience make EC Sourcing Group uniquely qualified to assist with your sourcing needs.