Standard eProcurement systems enable buyers and sellers to exchange electronic bid documents. It reduces the cost of tendering, speeds up the process and also reduces the environmental impact of printing and transporting multiple copies of bid documents. We call this type of system ‘document centric’.
What is data-centric eProcurement?
Next-generation eProcurement systems take these benefits to a new level by enabling the electronic exchange of bid information as data. By capturing and storing tender responses as individual pieces of data and using structured questions wherever possible, a data-centric boosts the efficiency of procurement is a number of ways. You get more automation, better integration and sharper insight into the process.
Our recent white paper outlines 10 benefits of data-centric eProcurement, shows you the full list of functionality that it enables and arms you with the questions to ask your eProcurement solution provider to establish whether your system is data-centric. Below we outline 3 key benefits.
Sophisticated eEvalution and automation
Bid evaluation is one of the most important aspects of the procurement process. It can be a time-consuming and complex task. The opportunity to automate significant parts of the process (eEvaluation) is an attractive to many organisations.
Data-centricity enables you to use standard evaluation criteria or create criteria unique to your organisation or an individual procurement. Data can be set-up in a very granular way, meaning that bid comparison and evaluation can be very finely tuned. It’s possible to weight whole sections, or just individual questions.
Once you have established the criteria, you can generate side-by-side comparisons of bids at the press of a button. You can even automate the ranking of bids. Consequently, it takes no longer to evaluate twenty bids than to evaluate two. eEvaluation saves time but, of potentially greater benefit, it enables you to create more competition because you can easily process a much larger number of bids.
Multiple levels of tendering and complex scenarios
No matter how complex the tendering situation you need to manage, a data-centric system gives you a fundamental advantage. Using a data-centric system to manage your tender eProcurement using workflows. This gives you the ability to manage multiple sub-tendering or sub-contracting scenarios within the same system.
In some sectors – construction, for example – there can be multiple levels of tendering, sub-tendering and sub-contracting operating to deliver a scheme. In large organisations, there may be a complex chain of approval for purchasing or you may want to allow teams within different departments to combine their purchasing into a single process to leverage better buying power.
Your eProcurement process can mirror the organisational and approval structures that you have, rather than imposing a way of working on you. In addition, data about the tendering process can flow down to every level and participant automatically (if that is what you want).
Bringing real-time verification and authentication
Data-centric systems let you integrate with other live systems, in real time, to verify time-sensitive information. This might include integration with a tax management system, Vehicle Registration and Licensing, immigration and citizenship databases or company credit check systems.
Real-time verification or validation of data gives you the ability to automate supply registration and ensure compliance without increasing administrative overheads. You can get immediate answers to practical questions such as ‘do the bidders have sufficient vehicles to fulfil the tender requirements?’ and you can find details instantaneously such as VAT numbers, or the DUNS number of an organisation.
