An overview of the functions is available in the following sections:
Bidders & Suppliers
The lower the in-house production and service depth of a company, the more important is the quality of their suppliers and their products. Even more so in globalised markets. Therefore, supplier management plays an important part in the purchasing department.
Our Sourcing platform myFutura supports you efficiently in creating and maintaining a circle of capable suppliers and in pre-qualifying existing and new suppliers. In addition, it simplifies the maintenance of your master data so that value added doesn’t become revenue lost.
Classification
In myFutura the qualitative aspect of a contract or a supplier is part of the whole sourcing process. Suppliers are classified in the supplier catalogue according to generally valid standards like eCl@ss and LB DIN. They can also be allocated to individual material groups.
Supplier Catalogue
How are you going to find new and suitable suppliers? Our eSourcing platform provides you with a supplier catalogue of some 40,000 entries sorted by material group for your individual research in addition to your own pool of suppliers.
If you are successful in finding a new supplier, you can activate a prequalification process with standardised online questionnaires and thereby extend your pool of suppliers by further contacts.
Pool of Suppliers
The pool of suppliers consists of the database containing your own suppliers and can be expanded through your research in the public supplier catalogue.
Prequalification
Through the prequalification module in myFutura you can actively or passively pre-qualify interesting bidders in an automated process and according to your own requirements.
By using the integrated questionnaire generator as well as an element library you can create individual new questionnaires or generate questionnaires on the basis of the template used so far in your company.
By using closed questions and a point-based system the answers can be evaluated easily.
You can question suppliers differently by material group and specify possible knock-out criteria as well as individual validity periods for different questionnaires.
Research
For your own research the following sources are available: your own pool of suppliers, the public supplier catalogue and the database “Who delivers what”, which requires an interface.
Enquiry & Offer
Stay in control throughout the whole complex sourcing process. Transparency is essential in the face of a variety of enquiries with very detailed item lists, often consisting of hundreds of pages as well as various attachments (sometimes even in different languages).
Therefore, we have designed myFutura as multilingual program with a sourcing monitor. This provides you an overview of all relevant instruments and procedures involved in the enquiry and bidding process. One example is the traffic light function: As long as no offers have been received it is red. When the first offers come in it changes to yellow and eventually to green when all offers have been received.
Status notifications keep you informed about the progress of the bidding process: Have the attachments been opened, enquiries been viewed or rejected already? Thanks to this information you can act more quickly, remind your suppliers of the deadline for their bid, extend the circle of bidders or, if necessary, extend the deadline in order to receive the desired number of offers.
Supplier Connection
Internet access is sufficient for communication with your supplier. For enquiries, they are sent an e-mail containing a link to the myFutura platform as well as a one-off password. On the platform they can maintain their master data, view and edit enquiries and submit their activity confirmations.
If there are changes, the myFutura notification management keeps your suppliers informed by e-mail. You can also send payment approvals to suppliers via the myFutura platform.
Service Enquiries
Item lists for service enquiries are complex and often consist of several hierarchical levels. Therefore, such item lists are usually edited by the department which requires the services.
The advantage of myFutura: Our platform connects the purchasing department with other departments. Therefore, both parties have access to the same data. This means that the purchasing department can start the enquiry process straight away as soon as the item lists are available.
Purchasing Documentation
In an automated or manual process you can attach documents to any tender on a project, title or position level. For example, if you wish to attach your general terms and conditions to every tender concerning a certain material group, LB-DIN or service area, you can simply upload these documents to the global documents section in myFutura.
The documents are then automatically attached to all assigned tenders.
Excel Import & Export
You would like to edit item lists, offers or price comparison lists in Excel? Thanks to the Excel interface in myFutura this is no problem – neither for the buyer nor for the supplier. Buyers can create item lists in Excel and upload them online as CSV files to myFutura. Suppliers can then download the enquiry as an Excel file, enter the prices offline and upload the edited file containing their offer back to myFutura.
In addition, you can export all chart views to Excel in order to edit them for evaluation purposes.
GAEB Import & Export
In the construction sector, different AVA systems are used to tender for services. We have developed a GAEB interface to enable you to upload item lists to myFutura. You can edit you tender in your AVA system and import it to myFutura.
Once a decision has been made about the award, you can download the awarding data back into your AVA system.
Requests for Information (RFI)
Requests for information include only details such as quality, capacity, company size and availability but do not contain price details. You can use the RFI editor to create such enquiries individually and according to your requirements. You can also save your RFIs so that you can use them later on as templates.
Requests for Quotation (RFQ)
In myFutura you can carry out a variety of requests for quotation ranging from simple to very complex. It is possible to show service enquiries including different hierarchical levels such as title or subtitle. To enter the data you can either use the myFutura online editor or import the positions via GAEB or Excel.
In addition, you can select different position types such as alternative, requirement, advice or information positions.
Price Comparison List
It can be very time-consuming to create a price comparison list. myFutura automates this process by arranging the offers in several price comparison list versions (horizontal, vertical), which saves you one step. You can analyse all offers directly on the myFutura platform and there is no need to transfer them to the AVA system.
Sourcing Monitor
Once the myFutura website has been accessed, the sourcing monitor is displayed. It informs you about the status of your enquiries and auctions by showing enquiries in preparation, current, closed and rejected enquiries as well as upcoming, current and closed auctions.
You can sort the individual transactions with a mouse click or access them directly. The monitor shows the number of invited suppliers, their activations, offers and / or rejections.
The traffic light function with red, yellow and green phases shows you at a glance where it is necessary to take action and which transactions have been completed.
Sealed-bid system
The so-called sealed-bid system separates the technical and factual parts of an offer from the commercial offer so that they can be assessed separately.
The first step is a quality check of the offer. The second step is to analyse the price comparison lists. That way you can ensure that you only buy what matches your requirements in terms of quality.
Rounds of Negotiation
myFutura offers detailed logging and documentation functions as well as an integrated change management tool. In case of changes or several negotiation steps, the version management feature guarantees you access to the data from all phases of the bidding process.
Purchasing & Sales Auctions
When the quality of materials and services requested is comparable, online auctions can achieve further considerable cost savings. Auctions are a very quick and effective means to achieve market-driven prices.
MyFutura can support your purchasing department in two ways: With only a few mouse clicks you can transfer your tender into an auction or you can start auctioning straight away. Our solution provides you with different options for holding purchasing and sales auctions.
Within each type of auction myFutura offers you different parameters. For example, you can define time-frames to prolong your auction or specify the extent of allowed discounts.
In this way myFutura helps you realise your auctioning strategy – so that you get good value for money in the end.
Reverse Auction
The reverse auction works the other way round. The prices keep falling instead of rising (therefore: reverse). As soon as the starting price has been announced, bidders reduce their offers in predefined steps. The cheapest offer is awarded the contract.
Auctioning Monitor
Just like the sourcing monitor used for enquiries and bids, the auctioning monitor helps you to keep an eye on the status of your current auctions.
Like a traffic light, the different colours show how near to the end your auction is.
English Auction
The English auction is a traditional sales auction and is also called inverse auction. The selling price conforms to the highest bid of a potential buyer. The seller defines a minimum for the first bid and determines by which amount the current bid must be outbid.
The bidder with the highest bid is awarded the contract.
Dutch Auction
You can set up the Dutch auction as top-down (sales) or bottom-up (purchase) transactions. The price keeps falling or rising periodically within a set range. The bidder who accepts the price first is awarded the contract.