Energy supplier seeks SRM software

We are a local energy supplier in southern Germany and are looking for supplier relationship management (SRM) software.

In order to simplify our day-to-day work relating to the procurement of external services and products, we want to implement and use a systematic and objective supplier management system as an additional IT tool. The main goal is to gradually and financially optimize our own value chain and thus enable a transparent comparison of all our partners. The economic, technical, and ecological/social components are to be weighted equally.

The company currently works with over 1,000 active suppliers, and a large number of supplier master records are also stored in the central ERP system (SAP), many of which are marked with a blocking note. An objective comparison between service providers was and is currently not possible. The decision-making basis for selecting a business partner is often only the current commercial offer and the intuition of the decision-makers. Furthermore, there is no controlled process or documentation regarding other factors relating to suppliers, such as certificate management, product group offers, etc. This situation is unsatisfactory not only for the administrative and technical areas. Information about our suppliers is currently collected at various locations. This makes it difficult to evaluate, formulate, and adhere to a uniform strategy.

In the future, a system will be implemented that holistically organizes, develops, and ideally maps business relationships. These functions should not be mapped in SAP, but rather fed with the necessary data from the ERP system via an interface.

We have already drafted the requirements for our internal use. The initial discussions will serve to align our ideas with the realistic possibilities and to get a first impression of the software. We will then draw up the requirements specification and launch the official request in cooperation with our IT department.

The software should meet the following requirements:

• Active supplier management (mainly national, but also some international suppliers)
• Supplier evaluation
• Delivery performance (quantity, deadline)
• Quality
• Service level - Cooperation
• Price
• Supplier classification (qualitative and quantitative ABC-XYZ evaluations)
• Supplier qualification and development
• Contract management, database, and certificate and, if necessary, compliance management with implemented document management (own uploading and reminders)
• Risk assessment, rating
• Payment system
• Sales development
• Potential new suppliers
• Key data – vertical range of manufacture, company size, number of employees
• Location, distance
• Supply chain verification
• Country identification
• Risk management, risk assessment
• Contract management
• Contract and document database
• Email reminder function
• Supplier classification
• Supplier qualification and development
• QM processing
• Portal solution - Furthermore, the project must examine whether parallel mapping of all order and invoice documents from the SAP system (material management module) is possible and worthwhile. Can such a portal independently communicate our SAP, webshop, and other orders and process them completely (i.e., with goods receipt posting and invoice payment)?
• ISMS functions Supplier - assignment of a risk level
• Authorization management
• German and English language would be nice
• Interfaces to four existing solutions (ERP, purchasing, web shop, and ISMS)
• Simple and intuitive to use
• Can be further developed by the user
• On-premises or web-based

Five to seven software workstations are planned. Work will be carried out in an MS Windows system landscape.