From paper to procurement effective catalogue creation and ...

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S T E P 1 – D E V E L O P I N G T H E B U S I N E S S C A S E
When embarking on any new commercial endeavour, you should undertake a market survey. In so doing:
• ask your major customers if they are intending to implement or have already deployed an
internal e-procurement system;
• canvass your smaller customers and find out if they would be interested in creating and
managing a catalogue of your products for distribution via a supplier hub or over the Internet;
• check out the tender proposals requested by buying organisations;
• ask the question “would I have a better chance of new business if my catalogue was e enabled?”
You may be under pressure from a key existing customer to set up an electronic catalogue.
When setting up your electronic catalogue, focus on the existing market and also look for
interoperability options. The principle is that if you can set an electronic catalogue up for one
environment, it should be easily ported to another as long as you have touched the necessary bases.
In order to determine whether there is an economic benefit of developing an electronic catalogue,
you should always undertake a business case first.
Template for the Measurement of eCatalogue Costs and Benefits
Context
In this section you will need to develop a best practice approach that will help you reduce the cost
and complexity of establishing and managing a dynamic electronic catalogue.
In particular, you will need to demonstrate that you can cost-effectively create and maintain a
single master catalogue and publish it across different buying systems.
Purpose of this Exercise
The purpose of this exercise is to identify and measure the costs and benefits associated with use
of electronic catalogues. The objective is to identify and measure the cost that you will incur when
dealing with your customers prior to the use of such a catalogue. These costs will then need to
be compared with those costs incurred after the implementation of the catalogue. The benefits of
using an electronic catalogue in terms of cost saving and other factors can then be measured.