Which sourcing work should run itself?
Autonomous sourcing can run whole events for your team, take on parts of the process with a person in the loop, or let the business run its own. Procurement Code helps you decide where it fits and gets your people ready for it.
Three ways to use sourcing platforms and agents
The same platform can run an event in three ways. All three let the same team cover more of your spend, because the platform builds the event, invites suppliers and collects the bids. Where the business runs its own quotes, those requests don't reach the team at all.
The right one depends on the category, the risk involved and who needs a say in the award. That choice should be made deliberately for each category, because automating everything isn't the aim.
Procurement team, autonomous
The platform runs the whole event inside rules the team has set.
Procurement team, with a person in the loop
The platform does the legwork. The team reviews the offers and makes the award.
The business, self-serve
Someone outside procurement runs their own quote, inside limits procurement sets.
Five questions to answer before you choose a platform
- 1
Does procurement hear about a need before a supplier has been chosen?
- 2
Is each category sourced the way its market needs, or the way it was last time?
- 3
What is each event for, keeping rates at market or changing the cost base?
- 4
What triggers a category to go back to market?
- 5
Does the price you won reach the invoice?
The sourcing event is the fast part
A platform can run a sourcing event in hours. The work before it and after the award still takes weeks.
- Spend is grouped into events worth running, with a specification suppliers can price.
- Enough suppliers are invited to give the platform real competition.
- The platform works inside limits your team has agreed.
- Every bid is recorded, so you can see why a supplier won.
- The contract, supplier set-up and first order follow quickly, so the new price starts sooner.
- People in the business know the new supplier exists and how to order from it.
What each event shows you decides what gets sourced next
- Before the eventWeeks
- Spend is grouped into events worth running, with a specification suppliers can price.
- Enough suppliers are invited to give the platform real competition.
- The eventHours
- The platform works inside limits your team has agreed.
- Every bid is recorded, so you can see why a supplier won.
- After the awardWeeks
- The contract, supplier set-up and first order follow quickly, so the new price starts sooner.
- People in the business know the new supplier exists and how to order from it.
- What each event shows you decides what gets sourced next
- Stakeholders are open to new suppliers and to competition.
- Stakeholders trust the results enough to put more spend through the platform.
- Your team treats the platform as part of the job and keeps using it after the pilot.
When I first deployed autonomous sourcing, stakeholders said it wouldn't work. Running it on live events is what changed their minds.
1:48The sourcing engine diagnostic in under two minutes
One free hour with your sourcing team. You see how much of your spend is sourced by choice, where events are held back and what your team would change first.
Request a free diagnosticHow Procurement Code helps
01
The diagnostic session
One hour · At no cost
Your sourcing team works through eight areas, from the request to the invoice, for the categories that matter most. It can cover the whole lifecycle instead if that suits you better.
02
Sourcing analysis
Scoped to your organisation
The room's view checked against your own orders, suppliers and spend. You get a plan for each category and the type of platform it calls for, with no vendor recommendation. Choosing the platform itself is separate work, under Technology decisions.
03
Getting ready for live events
Before and during the build
The mandate, the limits and what the platform may decide on its own, agreed before the first live events. Then a pilot on real categories.
In my last in-house role, I led the team that ran sourcing optimisation events, configured sourcing agents and ran auctions across several platforms. Procurement Code takes no commission or referral fee from any vendor.
Thinking about autonomous sourcing?
Tell me what you're weighing up, from the first demo to a platform that isn't used as much as it could be.
Talk it through
Send a short note about the decision in front of you. I reply personally within a working day.
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