bequester tips - tip 02: small + medium business procurement in a flash

Bequester Tips: TIP 02

Small + Medium Business Procurement in a Flash

Procurement in Small + Medium Business isn’t easy!

When on a mission to buy products and services for the small/medium business, the business man/woman will use search engines and other information portals to research suppliers that can fulfil his/her business need.

He/she will send emails and call different suppliers to get the best product or service, at the lowest possible price.

The business man/woman will probably manage a few emails and phone calls, taking more than an hour of his/her valuable time.

This time consuming process proves the hypothesis that “Procurement in Small + Medium Business isn’t easy!”

The Bequester Procurement Process

Bequester uses “Buy Requests” to shorten the process of buying products and services in small + medium business.

In Bequester, a Buy Request is a request posted by a business indicating its intent to purchase goods and/or services from another business.

The main aim of Buy Requests is to save you time of sending out countless emails to request quotes from potential suppliers, while saving costs in the process.

To create a new Buy Request, click the Green “Create Buy Request” button from [either] the Opportunity Feed, Buy Requests or Sell Offers pages.

A New Buy Request form is immediately loaded.

This form is made up of 5 key pieces of information that is required from you.

This is a 320 character description of the product/service you wish to buy from potential suppliers.

A winning Buy Request is one where the description entices the potential supplier to believe there is a deal to be concluded and possibilities of future business.

Do not put unnecessary information in the description…make it concise and straight to the point.

1

This is your total budget for the product/service you wish to buy from a potential supplier.

Your budget is hidden from potential suppliers…we don’t want them to become biased in their pricing.

2

Please Note: the budget field is a number, including decimals.

If the budget is “$12,200.50”, then you should input “12200.50” in the field.

Do not input the currency symbol or commas to separate thousands…these will be added by the system.

Note

This selects the city where the product/service is to be delivered, also targeting suppliers from a relevant city.

If it’s a product/service that can be provided by suppliers from any city, then select “All Cities” from the options.

3

This is the category and sub-category of the product/service you wish to buy.

This makes it easy for potential suppliers to search Buy Requests by product/service categories.

4

Buy Requests don’t last forever.

This is where you select how long your Buy Request remains open for bids from potential suppliers (1 to 7 Days).

The short 1 to 7 Day period entices potential suppliers to place their bids quicker, which enables you to see your savings within a short space of time.

5

Remember, Buy Requests are only the first step to creating a lasting relationship with a new supplier.

With a realistic budget, Buy Requests allow you to select the best suppliers out of the many that are registered in Bequester’s Supplier Database.

The Bids screen enables you to see bids from potential suppliers, from lowest to highest price quotation, including each potential supplier’s pitch.

You are also able to see potential savings on your budget.

Once the Buy Request closes (or you force it to close) for bids from potential suppliers, you will be able to accept the best bid.

Remember, the lowest price doesn’t necessarily constitute the best bid.

You should accept a bid based on both the bid price and a pitch that meets your requirements.

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