Jeremy Ferrer
Webinar :
Cross-border Purchases and VAT: Optimization Strategies
Tuesday Sept. 10, 2024 at 11 am (France)
The purchase of services is a very specific type of purchase, considered complex, very different from the purchase of a traditional product. Numerous constraints and parameters have to be taken into account. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain large margins of productivity and gains on these purchases. E-procurement solutions can now provide optimization solutions without neglecting the predominant human aspects in the Client/Service Provider relationship.
Unlike the purchase of conventional products, the purchase of services brings into play the human person, business specificities, and needs specific to each company and each person. Additional vigilance is therefore required when purchasing services.
Attention to the obligation of vigilance! First of all, it is necessary to ensure that the supplier is in good standing, so you must check regularly (every 6 months) the URSAAF declaration, the list of posted workers (to avoid any hidden work), and of course the KBiS extract. Social risk is often minimized and yet very frequent and very dangerous for the client in the event of a breach.
Then, it is essential to monitor these suppliers in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Now, specialists and large groups are using more and more outsourcing of this collection of information that combines the performance of the tool and human control with the intervention of specialists such as Lawyers, Financiers and Buyers.
As with all purchases, using a solution allows significant gains. Les VMS solutions (Vendor Management System) are now very ergonomic and easy to handle. They allow the buyer to automate as many tasks as possible. They also delegate the launch of the consultation while maintaining control.
It is essential to launch requests for optimized profiles. The VMS tool coupled with the SRM of Sourcing-Force.com, makes it possible to gather all the information on a only tool and choose the good providers (Geolocation, Skills, transaction histories, contracts, general and financial information, contact).
It is essential for this type of purchase. The standardization of specifications in the company allows the buyer to create a framework in which he goes delegating to business departments (R&D, Industry, HR...) the responsibility for tenders and the follow-up of the service. First of all, it reduces exchanges, limits errors or omissions, and the construction of standards. But also, it makes it possible to compare consultations, profiles and quotes between them according to providers, agencies, types of services and date.
It allows the comparison of supplier responses in effective ways. Also, it ensures that the supplier provides the right information to avoid time-consuming exchanges with low added value.
The buyer wastes precious time managing the multitude of emails that he receives every day. The implementation of a VMS solution makes it possible to reduce the number of emails per consultation by 90%. Through its collaborative aspect, business departments, the buyer and the supplier all respond on a single tool. It is a messaging by consultation to not lose any information, and to centralize conversations. A supplier area allows the supplier to respond and update its offer independently.
For the remaining 10% of emails, a large part of the solution is automated: Invitation to consultation, alert when an offer is submitted, follow-up emails or even response emails...
A last very important gain in productivity is the centralization of consultations in a single tool. Thanks to the search engine, each stakeholder can find the information in a few seconds. All information can be consulted throughout the consultation (Initial specifications, history of supplier responses, stakeholder profiles, messaging, planning).
Provide prescribing departments with an E-catalog of negotiated benefits/services, or even day/hour package statistics, will speed up the ordering process and internal customer satisfaction.
Software solutions such as Sourcing-Force.com
provide rationalization that is all the more necessary as these purchases of services continue to develop. BME Consulting, a major player in source-to-pay, has made this purchasing family a specialty.
Another way to optimize the purchase of services is outsourcing. Very widespread in the United States, outsourcing management with a single service provider such as MSP (Managed Service Provider) provides 3 major advantages:
The MSP ensures the administrative management i.e. the collection of legal documents, the editing of orders and invoices. Then, also the issuance of contractual documents, payments... You get a single invoice each month.
By combining the Sourcing Force e-Achat solution with an outsourcing service such as
Buy Made Easy the margin for optimizing the purchase of services is considerable. Still too few companies, especially ETI and SMEs, use this type of solution, but this purchasing category generates very significant costs.
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