Best candidates for electronic Catalogues

Where to start is always the question, for those who are initiating their journey or for those who are on their way and working on continuous improvement. This post shall help you to find good candidates for electronic catalogues a) with advices on what to look after, b) with a view on easiest categories to enable and c) with best in class performance per categories.

First of all, what shall you look after?

  • All items that have a “part number” to “price” relationship,
  • All items from a vendor offering eCatalog enabled purchasing capabilities
  • All suppliers who are sent many orders per year
  • but also Services such as temp labor, consulting, marketing and print

Be aware that the top 3 easiest categories to enable via an electronic catalog are:

  1. Office Supply
  2. IT Equipment
  3. MRO

But a couple of others worth a try:

  1. Packaging
  2. Books/Publications/Color documentation
  3. Laboratory devices
  4. Security equipment, supplies and services
  5. Chemicals
  6. Marketing : Business gifts and promotional items
  7. Catering & Food services

At last, don’t forget that Services can also be managed through eCatalogs, which may have a huge impact on your daily operations as services can account for 80% of the indirect spend.  Categories within services which should be analyzed for eCatalog considerations:

  1. Temporary Labor
  2. Consulting
  3. Print
  4. Marketing Services

The diagram below gives a graphical overview:

BestCandidates4internetPurchasing

 

And if you wonder about some key metrics and Best in Class performance, you can check it out in this Post “Catalog Enablement metrics – What Best in Class are achieving

 

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