ESM announced the release of a new sourcing suite to its collection of procure-to-pay options. With this latest update, ESM Sourcing enables users to fully automate request for information, proposal or quotation (RFx) processes as they strategically source goods and services, and take advantage of faster online bidding with their chosen suppliers. With automation through ESM Sourcing, users can reduce manual tasks and, ultimately, increase savings.
The solution is designed for quick implementation and allows for institutions to add features as necessary. With this latest release, ESM Sourcing users can:
- Completely customize the solution to suit their organization’s needs and processes, including RFx.
- Capitalize on a new user experience that simplifies assembly as they search for vendors and consider suppliers’ responses.
- Stop searching through old Word documents for RFx language and, instead, modularize proposals with libraries that they can build and call on as they create new documents, forcing standardization and ensuring that what is published is both accurate and up to date.
- Create open invitation proposals, which are visible to all suppliers within ESM’s supplier portal, and invite-only events, allowing for the strategic targeting of specific suppliers.
The updates to ESM Sourcing also is a boon for suppliers within ESM’s network. Suppliers now can:
- More easily search for proposals from buyers using ESM Sourcing.
- Receive alerts about RFPs and other events from current customers or customers in their geographic regions.
- Pull documents and images, such as insurance certificates, from a new supplier library as they respond to events.
ESM will roll out more updates to ESM Sourcing as it continues to build a social sourcing solution for its customers and supplier network.
“We’re very excited about this upcoming release,” said Anthony Rotoli, ESM’s co-CEO. “It’s going to hit many of our customers’ current pain points as they manually draft RFPs and other requests. Customers asked for this and, we know, they’re eager to use it.”
The Sourcing update broadens ESM’s easily implemented and configurable software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based spend management solutions, which also include e-procurement, contract management, invoicing and reporting services. Other recent enhancements to ESM’s offerings include a new landing page that shows real-time statistics based on the applications deployed within an institution.