The first wave of eProcurement platforms enabled buyers and sellers to exchange tenders, proposals and information as documents. Whilst this “document-centric” model delivers some efficiency savings compared to printing and posting documents, moving to a data-centric eProcurement model delivers a wider range of efficiencies and enables buyers to take their eProcurement to the next level.

Reduces effort and duplication

A data-centric eProcurement system manages tender and bid information at granular level, as data rather than documents where it makes sense to break down the responses. This means that the process of responding can be more controlled – which is better for bidders as well as buyers. Where a response should be a number, a date or a value, you can ensure and validate them as they’re entered.

This way of managing information means that you will be able to reuse previous tenders. This saves the time it takes to get a procurement up-and-running so your team can focus only on what is unique to a given procurement process. By adopting this re-use model, you’ll also see greater consistency and adoption of your organisation’s best practice.

Streamlines bid comparison and evaluation

Having your responses and individual answers and pieces of data delivers significant benefits during the decision-making phase of the process. You have dramatically more scope of viewing and comparing bid information and it can be presented in multiple formats. Responses, for example, can be presented as side-by-side comparison tables with added assessment and scoring fields for easy evaluation. No more manual cutting and pasting of bid content into Excel.

Another advantage is that responses can still be output as standard Office document formats and PDFs for printing and offline use should that be necessary.

Delivers more insight and learning

You’ll also find it easier to search, access and share information. It also means that a wider group of people – not just those with an intimate knowledge of each procurement process – can access the insights from procurement activity.

Having bid responses stored as data creates opportunities to measure and analyse each and every procurement instance and report on the findings. Every procurement adds to the collective insight and helps to improve your organisation’s understanding of its activity – how long it takes, where the delays are, how many bidders participate, how much competition there, how often auctions are run and how much they save on average.

To find out more about data-centric eProcurement download our white paper ‘10 Ways Data-Centricity Takes eProcurement to the Next Level‘ or contact us to arrange a demo.