Telecom eProcurement And Key Issues Related To It
When it comes to telecom expense management and eProcurement, the term is widely used to represent a number of things starting from RFP to contract management through spend analysis tools and auctions. However, there is the need of an appropriate definition to help you understand what eProcurement actually includes.
What actually it is?
E-procurement is the term that was traditionally used to describe the e-enabled “purchase to pay” process. As the time passed, a number of other procurement processes were e-enabled and were included in the eProcurement procedure. The newly added processes include strategic sourcing, RFPs, tendering, reverse auctioning, contract management and reports. Thus, nowadays, the term-eProcurement is used to include all these processes that are covered in the purchasing cycle.
Though the telecom eProcurement process includes- business specifications, RFPs, telco reverse auction, negotiation and evaluation, contract signing, selection and requisition, authorization, ordering, receiving of products/services and making the final payment, but the services that are particular to the eProcurement process are software selection and implementation. However, all these processes are effectively managed and controlled by a telco eProcurement solution; you just need to find a reliable one.
Keys issues related to telecom eProcurement
- E-procurement in the telecommunication delivers many benefits which include savings, improved control over the different procurement processes, provision of important management information and optimization of the transaction costs.
- Before you start looking for a telecom eProcurement solution, you need to analyze your business properly, know its requirements and should ensure that you are having a right business objective. Only then you would be able to find the right solution as you can detect if it can meet your requirements or not.
- Creating an effective RFP is one of the main tasks of the eProcurement process as it lets you get attractive proposals from the suppliers. More details it will contain, greater will be the chances for getting good offers from the suppliers and more will be the competition among them.
- There are a number of aspects that you need to consider for evaluating and comparing the contracts. You need to consider the services/products included, their features, the cost of every product/service according to its category and more. In short, along with the overall spend, you need to analyze the cost included in each category. And this comparison can be better done by a TEM solution.
- An effective telecom eProcurement solution takes care of all the procurement processes. You just need to define your business requirements and goals, the software will create RFP, evaluate the reverse auctions, help you choose the right contract, manage invoices and will let you have better control over the telecommunication procurement process.
However, investing in a telecom eProcurement solution would be the best idea if you want your procurement process to go smoothly and want to have a better control over it.