[Sussex] Procurement strategy was IM Server

[Mark Harrison]

Ahem... slipped "send key" before finished...

Oh absolutely. The question of "which procurement strategy to use for a
given purchase" is long and tedious.

 A mate did an MBA thesis on it once...

 ... interesting stuff, if you like that kind of thing :-)

Where reverse auctions tend to work is when:

1: The item being purchased is available from a large number of independant
suppliers
2: The item being purchased is relatively "off the shelf"
... which might mean it is multiple suppliers quoting for supply of the same
item, or items that are sufficiently commodity-like to be substitutable as
such.
3: The quantities being purchased, or the potential importance of the
customer, are sufficiently large to allow suppliers to modify their "off the
shelf prices"

If you break ANY of these conditions, then you should use an alternative
procurement tactic.

I wasn't intending to imply that reverse auctions are the solution for all
procurement problems... the only people who make that claim are typically
providers of reverse auction software/services :-)

Regards,

Mark


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve Dobson" <steve at dobson.org>
> To: "LUG email list for the Sussex Counties" <sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 7:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Sussex] IM Server
>
>
> >
> > > The
> > > classic cases are best bids from competitors in a negotiation... and
> > > increasingly eAuctions are putting pay to that claim, with companies
> > > typically making better savings from their suppliers when those
> suppliers
> > > HAVE the information (in the form of the counter bid) from their
> > > competitors...
> >
> > That may not always be the case.  I was witness to a real live example.
> > A well know company was add some more specilised computer equipment.
> There
> > are two supplies of approprate systems and they do work together using
> > open standards - so either supplier would do.
> >
> > When the XXX's sales person came in and was told that YYY's kit was
> > already being used his responce was:
> >
> > "As a YYY user you are entitled to a 50% discount."
> >
> > If XXX was told the YYY's bid for the same amount of kit was only 5%
> > cheaper than his staring offer I don't think that the 50% discount
> > would have appeared.
>
>
>
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