Reduce risk. Reduce cost. Raise performance. Services for professional procurement. Be better informed, make better decisions. Achilles procurement toolkit Support for sourcing and supplier management www.achilles.com
Procurement and purchasing support As a purchasing professional you are faced with increasing challenges in your supplier sourcing, management and procurement activities. To manage supplier data, compliance and risk whilst adhering to your company s procurement policies you need a system designed around your day-to-day processes and activities. Through systematic qualification and powerful online tools Achilles supports your organisation by reducing the cost, effort and risk of sourcing and managing suppliers. Comprehensive supplier qualification Our solutions are used by around 800 of the world s largest buying organisations to source and select suppliers that offer the products, services and standards they need. The heart of our solution is a systematic supplier qualification programme with data capture through secure online questionnaires supported by rigorous validation through our assessment teams and qualified auditors. We reflect your policies and standards in the supplier qualification process driving consistency and compliance across your purchasing activities. Our qualification questionnaires (and audit programmes) are configured around the risk management requirements of your company, sector and region. Typically they cover validation of the following supplier information: General company data Products & Services Finance Environment Quality Sustainability / CSR Insurance & Legal Health & Safety Audits Many buying organisations also include Achilles audits as part of their supplier qualification process. The audit programmes align with the qualification questionnaire information, giving enhanced on-site validation by Achilles qualified assessors. Illustrative areas covered by Achilles audits Quality Health Safety Environment Sustainability / CSR Carbon Reduction Achilles part of your purchasing ecosystem Once suppliers have satisfied your qualification requirements we publish their data online and provide you with a range of tools, modules and functionality to work with our information. Clients use our solutions to maintain accurate supplier data feeds into their ERP systems and to present key Achilles risk management information throughout the supplier life-cycle. To support this, we offer a number of options to pass data from Achilles to your ERP, spend analysis or contract management systems. Additional modules can be added to provide more detailed supplier qualification across areas of specific interest to your organisation: Risk management information for stakeholders In addition to procurement teams other organisational stakeholders can access Achilles data online: Specialist qualification modules Health & Safety teams Environmental teams Finance teams Financial Analysis Sustainability / CSR Carbon Reduction Supply Chain Mapping Sustainability and CSR teams Ethics and Compliance teams Contract management teams 01
Supplier sourcing and selection tools Our secure, cloud-based platform allows you to search for products and services and view validated compliance and risk assessment information on the associated suppliers. A range of standard and optional tools are available to help you work with our data in your supplier management and sourcing activities. Search, filter, compare and report You can search for suppliers by name or by the type of product and service you require. A range of filter criteria can be used to target your search or to refine results to those suppliers who meet your specific needs: Products / Services Environment Region of supply Audit & assessment You can save search criteria to re-use on regular sourcing events and use your search results to run additional qualification and RFI activities from the Achilles platform. A comparison tool lets you assess selected suppliers against key criteria to prioritise, short-list and export to other formats. Our system saves and records results to provide an auditable trail for evidence of policy and process compliance. You can configure your own reports by selecting the criteria and parameters you require from our extensive data sets. Once a report is run you can share this with your colleagues through the Achilles platform or export for use in other systems. Track specific products, services and suppliers Our Buyer Alerts capability lets you track data updates and status changes for any suppliers or product codes you select. This can support specific sourcing events or scenarios where you have responsibility for managing a roster of vendors or group of products. Scoring supplier profiles and attributes Our model uses algorithms to objectively score suppliers against selected criteria and data held on our platform. The scoring model is configurable and weighting can be applied to reflect criteria of the greatest importance to your business. The scores for each supplier can appear in your search results and be used to prioritise, qualify, compare and benchmark suppliers. Quality Compliance status Health & Safety Your internal standards Add your own qualification criteria and policies To supplement our core Achilles qualification data the Internal Qualification (IQ) module allows you to record, assess and score individual suppliers against your own criteria and share this across your organisation. You can add documents, data and comments from multiple sources (including Achilles) and apply a qualification score or status to suppliers. Your IQ scores / rules can be displayed in search results and if required you can restrict or filter searches to only display suppliers that have satisfied your IQ standards. Assess suppliers for specific contract opportunities Our Additional Questions (AQ) module is an online RFI tool for assessing supplier capability to provide specific products or services. Following creation of a supplier short-list using our search/filter tools you can develop a number of further contract-specific qualification questions to ask suppliers prior to inviting them to tender. This process allows you to further reduce the number of potential suppliers to a manageable number and to ensure that the correct suppliers are being invited to the tendering event. You define questions and response types, targeted suppliers and closing dates. The module tracks, scores and compares responses and allows you to qualify or non-qualify suppliers in single or multiround events. AQ stores the details, questions and responses from each event for re-use, reference or as an auditable record. Secure 2-way supplier communication An optional feature provides secure, private online communication between buyers and suppliers. This provides an effective recordkeeping solution to demonstrate compliance with regulation or company policies. 02
Power to procurement teams Our secure online platform gives buyers anytime anywhere access to source products and services, view validated supplier data and check supplier compliance through a range of powerful, easy-to-use tools. We have designed these around your key tasks to help drive performance and save time in day-to-day procurement and supplier sourcing activities. Additional modules KPIs A dashboard of indicators and metrics delivers key information on log-in. Your menu displays the modules and functionality you can access. Compare suppliers Alerts Instant notification of changes to products or suppliers you are tracking. Filter, compare and prioritise on key criteria for short-listing and export to other formats. Advanced search engine Find products, services and suppliers who meet the Record actions and communications criteria you specify. An auditable record of RFIs and communications provides evidence of compliance with legislation or internal policies. Save searches & results Save search criteria for regular sourcing events. Save results as an auditable record for policy or legislation adherence. Score suppliers Sort, filter and prioritise suppliers with a scoring model based on their data and questionnaire responses. New and existing suppliers All suppliers go through the qualification and validation process. Questionnaire status We provide a visual warning if data is incomplete or expired. Internal Qualification A private, buyerspecific record of internal documents, audits, scores or comments about suppliers. Audit View supplier audit details if these form part of your qualification model. Thirdparty data Track suppliers Follow chosen suppliers and get alerts on changes to their data or status. Access to specialist data from trusted thirdparty feeds. You can configure your language, content layout, display Unlimited user licences means buyers in multiple locations can preferences and report formats to reflect the regular tasks you access the platform to drive process consistency across your perform. procurement function. 03
Review and improve supplier performance In addition to our suite of tools to support supplier qualification and risk management at the sourcing stage we also provide solutions for managing existing contracts and vendor relationships. Our Performance Feedback module provides an online framework and process to help you review, rate and develop existing supplier performance: Supplier continuous improvement programmes Supplier issue resolution Future contract planning and consideration We provide an established set of criteria to assess and score a supplier s performance against. The module produces a detailed report that s specific to you and a high level score on the supplier that can be shared across our platform. As an Achilles community member you will also be able to review potential suppliers based on the performance scores they receive from other buyers. Reduce risk. Reduce cost. Raise performance. We reduce cost and effort, allowing purchasing teams to focus on other high value and strategic purchasing activities. Reduced effort in supplier data validation 1 FTEs engaged in validation 6 4 2 0 UK Utilities Company Reduced effort in supplier data validation 1 6 5 In-house 6 80% 1 Using Achilles We use Achilles to reduce the time it takes to pre-qualify suppliers. In Achilles we can select a category and any vendor found is prequalified. It makes the process very quick. Buyer UK Utilities My use of Achilles was not due to a cost factor, it was to reduce the procurement risk; I wanted a qualified supplier. Safety concern was the number one factor. FTEs engaged in validation 4 2 0 UK Electricity Company In-house 83% 1 Using Achilles IT Procurement Manager Transport Achilles helps us comply with our legislative requirements - this is one of our key needs from their service. 1 Source: 2012 Customer Interviews Buyer UK Utilities 04
Achilles Group Limited 30 Western Avenue, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4SH UK T: +44 (0)1235 820813 F: +44 (0)1235 821093 E: enquiries@achilles.com www.achilles.com 002-09/2013