E-procurement: 'supporting opportunities'

Abstract

A strategic sourcing research project was done within a large multinational in the food industry. The goals of this project were to research and optimise the procurement process for non-strategic items in the packaging materials portfolio. From the findings in the project followed the need for supplier reduction. Several potential wholesale suppliers were selected to supply the bundled non-strategic items portfolio. The research focussed on the packaging portfolios in the Netherlands and the UK. After having selected the potential suppliers and the portfolio set-up, the E-RFP was set up using the Ebreviate tool [1]. The strategic sourcing project realised reasonable potential savings in the total cost price of the articles and through improvements in the total supply process. The web-based ERFP as set up in this strategic sourcing project has proved its merits when looking at the results in this project. It is difficult to specify which part of the savings can be ascribed to the E-tool and which part followed from the strategic sourcing process itself. In the procurement process advantages of a web based Etool are numerous, for example in RFP throughput time, data recollection and data availability. In particular efficiency improvements in the procurement processes are realised through e-sourcing.