When you are deploying a procurement technology in your business, you will definitely want it to offer you the best returns, right? Because that is the only way, you can grow your business and your investment will be rationalized. So, here we are with a list of best practices of e-procurement to help you make the most out of this technology.

Use it throughout your company

Making a change is a hard step but the only way the implementation of e-procurement is going to prove successful is if you are promoting it throughout your business. You should recruit senior leaders in your business and influencers in your teams for promoting the benefits of e-procurement. When the leaders and influencers together are on board with the new system, the rest of the company will also start to use it.

Detailed and concise RFI, RFP and RFQ

Everyone while sending out a Request For Information (RFI), Request For Proposal (RFP) or a Request For Quote (RFQ) will like to have relevant responses but this cannot happen if you don't provide the correct information or provide very little information in the requests.

Think clearly about what you actually need and then ensure that all your requirements are listed thoroughly. For example, suppose you require materials of a certain quality, put those down. if the specifics are not clear, it can lead to suppliers offering either the wrong products which are having very low quality or are very expensive. This can raise supply costs in the long term.

Don't always go for the lowest bid

There is a saying that sometimes the lowest bid is the right bid but this is not always true. There can be scenarios mainly in a reverse auction case where the lowest bid may have a pricing structure which means that you are paying more than you realize. Look at the whole contract, the costs, and quality of the deliverables and after everything make your decision about which supplier is the best suited for your business.

Interact with vendors in reverse auctions

With just prices and quality, you cannot make good partnerships. For that, you need to know that you can speak to suppliers about issues, changes in demands and other details and the only way for doing this is to engage with suppliers during the reverse auctions. You can make this extremely easy if you deploy the online chat facility built into the software. While chatting with suppliers, you can take account of how they are addressing you, answering your question and their response time.

Make a Procurement Checklist

the fundamental tool Checklist can be used within the e-procurement process for determining what stage the procurement process is currently in. You can keep this list on paper but it can have the chances of being lost, mislaid or inaccurate. So, to get rid of those problems use digital versions that are more accurate and the action can be linked on the checklist to a specific document on your computer system. Procurement checklists are amazing for ensuring that everyone in the team is on the same page and also reducing processing time and preventing wastage.

Analyze the entire Purchase-to-Pay process

When you are trying to deploy a new system in the business, it becomes unlikely that only a single area will be affected. Often there are chances of several departments or jobs to get affected by the e-procurement process. So, for that, before you implement your new system, it is very much important to take a deep look into the entire Purchase-to-Pay process for ensuring that you are including everyone who is affected.

This can help you to maximize the savings which you have made throughout the business by optimizing processes across the company and not just limited to the purchasing departments.

Standardize your current procurement

Without a testing benchmark, you will never be able to know the success of your e-procurement process. So, before implementing a new e-procurement process, set benchmarks on the costs, time and other metrics that you would like to measure when you start utilizing the new system. With the measurable elements, you will not just be able to see the benefits of your e-procurement system, but you will also be helped in selling the system to your staff.

Just reading about the best practice guides of e-procurement or investing in technology alone will not help you to make savings in your procurement system. You will need to match the investment of the software with the on-duty staff and make sure that they are utilizing the technology in the best possible way.