Finding and working with the best suppliers for your business can be daunting and time-consuming. You must search for potential suppliers, contact them, request quotes, compare offers, verify credentials, etc. To top things off, you have to do all this while dealing with the risks and challenges of the global markets. That’s why many businesses choose outsourcing supplier discovery to a third-party service or platform.
But is this the best option for your business? In this article, we explore the pros and cons of outsourcing supplier discovery and why, with current technology, you don’t have to outsource anymore.
Supplier discovery is a labyrinthine journey that demands patience, diligence, and strategic acumen. Despite the digital age’s advancements, the process remains arduous. According to David Post, managing director at IBM Blockchain Ventures, it takes approximately three months to complete a single supplier search—a timeline that underscores the intricacies involved.
Sourcing professionals invest over 40 hours of painstaking work during this quest, meticulously evaluating potential partners. Yet, paradoxically, they can only consider a mere few dozen suppliers out of the vast pool available.
Outsourcing supplier discovery can help solve some of these issues by offering many benefits for your business, such as:
Despite its many benefits, outsourcing supplier discovery can also pose challenges for your business, such as:
It’s clear why, for many businesses, outsourcing supplier discovery may be the preferable choice. Supplier discovery is complex; many businesses sacrifice data privacy, security, internal capabilities, and more to avoid it. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Businesses need a cost-effective solution that makes supplier discovery easier, not one that does it for them. The answer lies in technology and automation. Platforms like BabelusAI empower you to find the best suppliers in record time, even within your current supplier network, without outsourcing the process to someone else.
The new and improved Insight360 is BabelusAI’s answer to bad supplier data. It uses an advanced, custom-trained artificial intelligence model to analyze all publicly available data on the suppliers in your database, creating a summary and description of each supplier and a comprehensive list of all the products and services they offer. The result is a clean, enriched, error-free, and up-to-date supplier database.
BabelusAI makes finding suppliers easy. The powerful search engine enhanced by GenAI can understand queries and find what you’re looking for. Our AI model converts public data into insights without the need for conversational chats. Combined with Insight360, the smart search is a supplier discovery powerhouse, allowing you to find hidden gems within your own supplier network.
In the intricate dance of supplier discovery, BabelusAI leads, keeping your business agile, secure, and competitive. If you want to stop sacrificing internal capabilities and enhance them through smart automation, contact us today or schedule a call to discuss developing a pilot for your company at no cost.
Remember, the path to supplier excellence lies in informed choices. Choose wisely, and let technology be your compass.
Sourcing the right suppliers is the lifeblood of any successful business. It ensures a steady flow of high-quality materials, keeps production humming, and ultimately fuels customer satisfaction. But for non-technical procurement professionals, finding the perfect partner can feel like navigating a maze blindfolded. If you've ever asked yourself how to choose new suppliers as a non-technical buyer, this guide is for you.
This post outlines tips and best practices for finding, evaluating, and managing your suppliers as a non-technical buyer based on the latest industry trends and standards.
Your choice of supplier has a profound impact on your entire operation. According to Deloitte, 79% of organizations with superior supply chain capabilities achieve significantly above-average revenue growth.
Reliable vendors delivering consistent quality materials on time contribute directly to cost reduction, efficient production, and happy customers.
The right suppliers can also:
Conversely, the wrong partner can disrupt your entire workflow with subpar products, missed deadlines, and unreliable communication. This goes to show why learning how to choose new suppliers effectively is not an expense, it's an investment for the future.
If you’re a procurement professional, odds are you come from a non-technical background and lack a degree in science or engineering. If that’s the case, you’re not alone.
According to Glassdoor and Global Performance, employers recruiting for procurement primarily seek degree-level education in business studies, management, marketing, operations management, and other business-focused careers. Technical skills don’t seem to be a priority.
The above presents a significant obstacle when evaluating potential suppliers, as your job hinges on ensuring they meet precise technical specifications – terminology that might make your eyes glaze over.
Imagine deciphering the intricacies of solar panel performance or the chemical composition of industrial adhesives without a scientific background.
This is the daily reality for countless procurement specialists.
If you don’t have a technical background but need to learn how to choose new suppliers, know that navigating the technical labyrinth is possible with the right approach. Here's a five-step roadmap to finding the perfect supplier:
Start by crafting a clear picture of your needs. What materials do you require? What are the exact technical specifications? This detailed understanding forms the foundation of your search.
There is no need to worry about this yet since this information comes directly from the production or R&D teams.
Utilize online directories, industry publications, and trade shows to identify potential vendors. Don't neglect offline resources like word-of-mouth recommendations from colleagues or industry associates.
Cast a wide net! Include all vendors who seem even remotely promising based on their product offerings and online presence. You will refine your list later.
This is where the nitty-gritty comes in. Scrutinize supplier specifications, datasheets, and product descriptions in search of the requirements production needs. If details are inadequate or confusing, don't hesitate to contact each vendor directly.
Remember, clear, concise communication is paramount. Don't be afraid to loop in your engineering team for technical clarification and support. Doing so is much better than purchasing ten million bolts and nuts from a Chinese supplier only to find out they don’t fit because their specs were in millimeters instead of inches.
This back-and-forth with suppliers and engineering is one of the most time-consuming and challenging steps of supplier discovery, especially if you’re not an engineer. However, it's crucial to ensure you're comparing apples to apples.
Once you have a short list of suppliers you know can deliver the right parts, you must research supplier reviews, check financial stability, and assess industry reputation. Look for certifications relevant to your needs, ensuring quality and regulatory compliance.
By now, you should have a workable shortlist of options. To finalize your decision, consider following these additional tips:
You know the suppliers in your shortlist all meet the technical requirements your organization needs, so the decision comes down to other relevant factors such as safety, quality, financial health, industry experience, scalability, and flexibility, among others.
Summarize this and any additional information in tables to make it easy to read and compare.
Evaluate each supplier based on your predetermined criteria and assign a score. You can use different supplier scoring models. You can also weight and normalize the scores to compare suppliers more consistently. This quantitative approach simplifies the final decision-making process.
At BabelusAI, we understand the challenges non-technical buyers face in the complex world of supplier discovery. Our innovative platform simplifies the process by translating technical specifications into readily understandable language.
Through AI-powered data analysis, machine learning, and a human-in-the-loop system, BabelusAI helps you assess and shortlist suppliers based on your specific technical requirements, saving you time, resources, and headaches.
Remember, learning how to choose new suppliers and finding the right partners for your business is an investment, not an expense. Contact us today to discuss how BabelusAI can help you overcome the technical hurdle as you navigate the world of supplier discovery, or schedule a call now to discuss developing a pilot for your company at no cost.
Finding new suppliers is critical for any business, and so is reducing supplier discovery time, especially in times of disruption and uncertainty. However, it can also be a time-consuming and challenging process, involving multiple steps, such as market research, supplier identification, qualification, evaluation, and negotiation.
The average enterprise can take up to six months to find and onboard a new supplier. This time frame can be too long for businesses that must react quickly to changing market conditions.
Fortunately, there is a way to speed up and simplify the supplier discovery process: artificial intelligence (AI).
AI can help businesses find new suppliers in days, not months, by automating and enhancing some key steps. Here are some of the benefits of using AI for supplier discovery:
BabelusAI is a leading AI-powered solution that provides updated supplier information in the most relevant categories within the energy sector and across multiple other sectors like telecommunications, construction, and the automotive industry.
Using a human-in-the-loop (HITL) model and AI, BabelusAI scans the market and identifies the most important suppliers for each category, regardless of whether they are registered on the platform. This effectively generates a 360° view of the supplier market.
BabelusAI invites qualified suppliers to complete their profiles and participate in customized technical analyses outside of e-procurement.
Using AI, the platform also updates its database through data harvesting, augmented by the suppliers. Vendors of all sizes are actively submitting technical data and credentials on our platform for our utility customers in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
BabelusAI is the ultimate solution for data-driven procurement in the energy sector. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you transform your supplier data, or schedule a call now to discuss developing a pilot for your company at no cost.
2023 has been an exciting year for BabelusAI. Major corporations in the United States and Europe have adopted Babelus's Supplier Discovery as their official supplier prospecting platform.
One of the biggest challenges in building a resilient supply chain is diversifying the supplier base. Sourcing new suppliers is an arduous task filled with endless hours of web searches, individual analysis of supplier profiles, exhausting email conversations, travel to events, etc.
BabelusAI automates and reduces to a few days, a process that takes months, delivering superbly digitized supplier data.
The ability to analyze large amounts of text and images has allowed us to make a quantum leap in our product and what we can offer to customers.
AI applied to text and images, allows the analysis of information on the Internet, such as websites, reports, and catalogs (yes, you read that right, files can be analyzed).
One of Babelus' functionalities is to collect information from suppliers through Data Harvesting. These lists of suppliers come from analyzing the information available on the Internet and are curated by experts in the field.
For example, when our crawler visits a website, it can summarize the supplier's profile and convert the list of products and services, regions of operation, contact information, certificates, ESG policy, and more, into structured data.
BabelusAI uses this information to generate a summary within our platform's supplier file and automatically tags the supplier in its corresponding category. For example, if a supplier indicates on its website, catalog, or other, that it manufactures or sells solar panels, it will be tagged with that label.
Another critical element this year has been the development of a smart search engine that allows the user to type in queries in natural language and obtain high-quality lists of suppliers, even if the user enters the words incorrectly. The search engine suggests the correct words and offers a search history like Google or Bing.
Holistic scouting goes through two phases:
I. Compiling supplier information available on the Internet.
II. Simply INQUIRING. That is, asking the supplier directly what they do and their capabilities.
This is done through the Spaces module, which is one of the most differentiating elements of Babelus, as it allows companies to get customized data without opening their contact information or entering into endless email threads with companies with which they may not be a perfect fit.
And let's be honest, using e-procurement with prospective suppliers for RFI is out of the question. Is it realistic and practical to invite the entire universe of prospective suppliers to fill out a registration for your e-procurement just to gather more information? Of course not!
Spaces offers prospective suppliers and companies the opportunity to discuss and receive documents away from boring and endless formats.
These advanced models, coupled with our ability to generate quality supplier data with contact person data, make BabelusAI the most efficient solution in the market for discovering new suppliers.
The savings in time and effort and the quality of the data we provide allow our clients to have the peace of mind of having a 360-degree view of the market. Having prospective suppliers mapped is one of the most critical elements in reducing supply chain risk.
Best of all, Babelus works outside of e-procurement. It requires no implementation, training, or connection to company data.
If you want to know how BabelusAI can help you expand your supplier base, click here to schedule a meeting or contact us. We will be happy to develop a pilot at no cost.
We will explore 10 ways AI can help improve supplier discovery
BabelusAI is a supplier discovery platform based on artificial intelligence that generates high-quality results, as easy to use as Google or Bing.
BabelusAI can scan millions of suppliers in a fraction of the time it would take a human to identify new suppliers. This approach helps companies to:
If you’re looking to improve your bottom line, lower your overall operating costs and spend less on your procurement operations, then diversifying your vendor list is a decision you’ll want to make for your business.
Don’t take our word for it, though. Consider the Atlanta-based consultant firm Hackett Group's findings that companies that commit to a long-term supplier diversity program can generate a 133% greater ROI than businesses that source products from a small, static list of vendors. Further, the report released by the Hackett Group found companies with diverse vendor lists drove an additional $3.6 million to a company’s bottom line for every $1 million spent on operations costs in procurement.
So, how exactly does having a diverse vendor list improve ROI and your bottom line? Here are just a few reasons:
It’s no secret that if vendors know they’re not the only horse you have in the race, they’ll typically do anything to win your business. Whether you’re looking for a lower price, a closer store location, or a tighter delivery window on an out-of-stock product, vendors will move mountains to accommodate your needs if there’s a possibility a competitor could beat them.
In almost every industry, the longer your company has been around, the more challenging it becomes to find innovative opportunities. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality seems to permeate many operations and procurement in businesses with a static list of suppliers, which ultimately puts up a roadblock to innovation and removes creative potential for the company's improvement. Working with a diverse list of vendors exposes you to new operating methods and even untapped markets.
Working with a diverse list of vendors also offers you a diverse selection of products. Reaching out to a wide range of suppliers offers you the immediate reward of a wide range of products and is arguably the only way to source niche or specialized products that your clients may love that you wouldn’t have been able to source from your static list of suppliers. To get new and innovative products, you must open yourself up to new and innovative partners.
Having an expansive and diverse list of suppliers to choose from means that you also have a broad and diverse selection of inventory and locations to choose from. Diversifying your list of vendors grants you access to a selection of distributor locations and a safety net of product stock, allowing you to select suppliers that work best for your job site and project timelines.
Okay, so there’s a catch to this one. Although traditionally diversifying your vendor list would be somewhat costly in terms of company time, Babelus offers you all the benefits of a broad list of suppliers with zero drain on your business’ resources.
Babelus uses algorithms and expert intervention to generate very high-quality supplier lists. In addition, the platform comes with an RFI module that allows you to collect customized data from suppliers, generating highly accurate shortlists.
And the greatest benefit of all? We put all the superbly digitized suppliers in one place at your fingertips.
Hopefully, it’s clear by now how diversifying your supplier list will help improve your business's bottom line by inviting innovation into your operations, vendor relationships, and even your product choice.
Babelus saves that exhausting manually procuring and maintaining a diversified list of vendors that can be a drain on resources, thanks to management tools.
In the end, the easiest way to diversify your customer list is to let a digital solution do it for you.
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