A successful procurement lifecycle is not a project but rather an ongoing process. There is more going on in the background of the procurement cycle than most people realize. The procurement cycle’s goals are to lower costs, control risk, and boost productivity. Without a doubt, each stage of the procedure advances that objective.
This article discusses the procurement cycle, starting by defining the procurement cycle and all of the stages that go into it and technologies that can help you with your sourcing cycle.
Table of Contents
Definition
The rules and procedures that guarantee tasks and processes are effectively completed throughout the procurement process must be implemented by procurement managers. The size and nature of the organisation, however, completely determine how a procurement lifecycle process appears.
Since no one solution works for everyone, you should customize the procurement procedure to achieve optimal effectiveness.
Define the needs of the company.
At this point, your organization’s stakeholders identify a need to be met. The goal at this step is to identify the requirement, then accordingly frame it, and finally describe it in terms of what it should accomplish for you within your business, whether it’s a product or a service that must be bought to support your internal operation.
In order to identify precisely what should be supplied in terms of practical usage, defining needs also entails creating specifications.
Create a plan.
When you identify your demands and choose a supply approach, you are in the planning stage of a strategy. The next step is to specify how you want to use the choice you selected during the market analysis phase.
You will have the chance to demand competitive rates or request suppliers to submit bids for your business, for instance, if you understand that your firm accounts for a sizeable amount of the revenue generated by your potential suppliers.
Create a thorough specification and documentation.
The specification stage is when pertinent parties determine the specifications you need for each supply item, such as the product’s quantity, quality, and functionality requirements. Your goal is to establish specific preferences that will inform your purchasing decisions and ensure that your products will fulfill their intended function.
Evaluation and selection of vendors
The procurement team should involve stakeholders in the RFP evaluation and scoring process after obtaining replies from the RFP process. You could want to establish a shortlist and reduce your provider options.
Then, either seek RFP presentations from the finalists or issue a follow-up RFP to clarify differentiators. To aid in your decision-making, you may also ask each seller for further information. You may, for instance, distribute a supplier diversity report, sustainability report, or security questionnaire.
Conclusion
And last, if you’re in charge of this negotiation, ensure you’re the only one the suppliers speak to! They could attempt to contact your project sponsor, another member of the project team, or an authority figure inside the company.
Inform the project team and the pertinent stakeholders that you are in charge of the tendering process. Ask them not to favor one provider over another by providing extra details unintentionally.
These actions just begin the procurement lifecycle process. In reality, a procurement team spends time figuring out how to improve procurement while they aren’t actively managing this process for a specific good or service. Software for sourcing and procurement might be useful in this situation.
