Sourcing Features and Functions
Many consider sourcing to be the heart of SRM and commodity management to be the heart of sourcing. Advanced sourcing suites are rich in analysis and decision support technology to absorb huge amounts of data quickly and make intelligent sourcing decisions. They also lay the foundation of execution through the RFx process and managing performance against contracts. Risk management is an area which spans the full lifecycle, but is most associated with the sourcing function.
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Commodity Management
Commodity management is the central sourcing function. Tools for analyzing global spend across many dimensions are needed to come up with optimum sourcing decisions. Tools to create and manage the supply plan give unambiguous direction to procurement.
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Supplier Management
Supplier management enables finding and qualifying the best supplier, maintaining the list of approved suppliers, maintaining and accessing a database of supplier profile information, and critically measuring, monitoring, and analyzing the performance of suppliers.
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RFx and Bid Management
Tools for creating and distributing a request for information, request for proposal, or request for quotation (we are using the term RFx to signify any of these) are critical in environments of high volumes of RFXs. These should allow a rich set of criteria to be considered and provide automated analysis and an iterative/interactive cycle with the supplier participants.
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Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Features and Functions
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