Feedback essentials in e-Marketplaces

Balance is an important element in business. Within the hiring arena, for example, pre-evaluations are made before engaging prospective workers, and exit interviews are held to complete post-assessments. Similarly, suppliers and even buyers go through accreditation routes to appropriately determine pricing structures, among other considerations. Simply put, balance is necessary to ensure an enterprise grows within its designated vision, all for the common goal of making operations better.

While considered quintessential among enterprises, appropriately defining balance is an evolving process. The smarter ones, however, have engaged early on by participating in neutral-centric e-Marketplaces, motivated by the need to benchmark across business networks. How?

The basic step begins when administration-intensive procedures are outsourced to competent partners that provide buyers the extra time to focus on more important matters, like having to adopt transparent dealing systems or procedures. Within SourcePilipinas’ system, for example, generic and specific or highly technical requirements are outlined, to ensure complete information has been relayed to suppliers. Exchange features are already built-in, eliminating possible distortion of information, especially during the course of implementing the transaction during the delivery process, and closing the loop through payment.

When it comes to monitoring of bids, e-Marketplaces help buyers and sellers defend a "competitive" pricing environment to higher management or to their respective bids and award committees. This is particularly applicable when gauging the time element involved based on offers and counter-offers received from suppliers, especially when market prices have become volatile. Extraction of reports is much easier via an e-Marketplace route, especially when data are required on demand.

Extensive, relevant and up-to-date contract formulation is amplified, most especially for price renegotiation clauses. Contingency approaches are better outlined when unavoidable scenarios occur, enabling purchasers to integrate their negotiation expertise with those from their finance and/or budget department. Analytical mindsets are encouraged, allowing an enterprise’s purchasing unit to actively participate in decision-making.

e-Marketplaces also provide scorecards, where overall performance parameters are defined, simplified and weighed based on awarding models. Some may pay more attention to awarding an item on the merits of lowest price, while others give higher regard to qualitative aspects such as product and/or service quality. In fact, data updates become much more responsive and effective, even when participating trading partners already have an internal system in place. Appraisal schemes are more "buoyant and interactive," especially in monitoring references from other enterprise users.

Within SourcePilipinas, the latter is made possible through the exchange’s Feedback Board. As the term connotes, scorecard rating is spread across industry categories, and participants are likewise accorded a venue to qualify certain aspects that may be more transaction-specific. This provides a flexible view among trading partners in a manner that can help defend industry members’ overall rating outlook. In fact, feedbacks provide higher value-add to an enterprise’s growth strategy to ensure continuous improvement in areas where they may be rated poor vis-a-vis other relevant categories such as price, for example. Rather than restrict to basic business documentations, SourcePilipinas’ Feedback Board aims to widen the perspective based on actual industry use.

Overall, a successful e-Marketplace transaction is primed on the basis that an enterprise would invest its trust and confidence in present and future trading partners. More can be derived when companies participate within a specialized business community where views are exchanged freely.

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Mariflor P. Santos is the senior e-Marketplace administrator of SourcePilipinas.com Inc. For comments, e-mail her at [email protected].