Running Your Sourcing Process Remotely with Bonfire

Overview

Bonfire was designed to provide teams with the flexibility to conduct Sourcing projects online. In this article we will outline different methods, tools, and techniques to help you run your sourcing process remotely.

This article assumes that you have access to a tool that allows you to share your screen with others involved in the sourcing process. There are many tools on the market that offer you this ability (Zoom, GoToMeeting, Skype, etc). Please check with your IT department to determine which tool is approved for usage at your organization.

• Drafting
• Online Supplier Submission
• Project Dashboard
• Keep your evaluation on track
• Internal Communication
• Remote Public Bid Openings
• Remote Consensus Meetings
• Emergency E-sourcing Documentation
• Supplier Communications
• Bonfire Resources

Drafting

This video walks you through best practices when it comes to scoping/drafting an opportunity in Bonfire. The following topics are covered in the video:

1. Drafting Functionality:  Allows you to setup your opportunity in a sandbox before it goes live to suppliers.
2. Editor Role: Allow non-purchasing stakeholders from your organization to help set up the project in Bonfire.
3. Internal Discussion: Capture all discussions focused on setting up the opportunity in one centralized place.
   

Online Supplier Submission

No person is required to enforce deadlines for physical bid packages, sort documentation and distribute it to your evaluation committee

Project Dashboard

The Project dashboard allows departments to have a bird’s eye view of all projects within a department. You will be able to check status, timelines and evaluation progress in a matter of seconds.

Keep your evaluation on track

Even with your Evaluation Committee working remotely, you can check-in automatically and see how each committee member is progressing.

Internal Communication

Provide instructions to evaluation committee members through Bonfire’s Internal messaging. Target internal stakeholders and evaluation committee members and report automatically.

Remote Public Bid Openings

With Bonfire, you can easily post your public bid openings through a video conference tool. This can be done by sharing your screen and reading the results aloud through an audio conference. This video walks you through bid opening best practices in Bonfire. The video covers the following functionality:

1. Unsealing: showcase time stamps of when you unsealed the documents received from your suppliers. 
   
2. Displaying the Bid Totals: 
   
3. Additionally, many organizations share their bid tabulations with their suppliers in the past public opportunity section of their portal. This way suppliers can access the bid tabulations after the opportunity has closed or if they miss the bid opening.

Here is an example from the City of Louisville’s public portal.

Remote Consensus Meetings

Conduct consensus meetings with ease, with everything all in one place with Bonfire’s scoring summary and proposal analysis. Watch a mock consensus meeting here.

Emergency e-Sourcing Documentation

Document emergency reason/methodology using Bonfire’s Internal Files to ensure you’re ready for a future audit. Click here for more information.

Supplier Communications

Are you not in the office to answer your phone? Bonfire can centralize all communication for suppliers from Addenda to clarifications questions. For a full webinar on this topic, click here.

Bonfire Resources

Need more help with using the Bonfire platform? There are many resources created and available to you and listed in our Bonfire Resources Overview article.