Digital procurement is fast becoming the preferred method for sourcing the critical resources of the connected modern world to power businesses. 

Digital-first and cloud-first strategies are increasingly becoming the norm for organizations, globally. And this is only set to intensify as new technologies that support and enable these strategies become more readily available and continue to solve the current challenges of manual, offline processes. 

We launched a new Cloudscene Marketplace experience in 2020 to capture the new wave of next-generation business strategies, and support buyers and service providers in fulfilling their requirements. 

So, what’s actually involved in sourcing network services using an online platform? We’ve broken down the key areas of digital procurement to guide you in fulfilling your requirements on Cloudscene Marketplace.

Before you begin

Once you’ve signed up for a Cloudscene account, you can begin sourcing with creating a listing on Marketplace that details your network needs and enables service providers, including your preferred vendors if you wish, to respond and provide quotes.

From there, Cloudscene makes it easy to organize responses and communication with service providers, collaborate on projects with team members, and get a holistic view of your sourcing activities for tracking and reporting.

Listing your business requirements

Firstly, consider your business’s requirements; if you have multiple, complex services to source and you need guidance with managing this, feel free to get in contact with us for assistance. Otherwise, breaking down your requirements into manageable parts is key to being clear in your communication with service providers when sourcing and gaining the most accurate responses in return.

The aim of the listing is to set out your requirements clearly enough for service providers to understand whether or not they can assist with your business needs. Listings can be private (only sent to vendors of your choosing) or public (published on Marketplace and available to vendors across the open market).

1. You can get started by going to Cloudscene Marketplace to create a listing (RFQ). Follow the prompts to fill out your requirements to obtain quotes from service providers including: title, start and end dates, listing type (public and available to the open market or private), and the service type/s. 

2. Next, you can specify the markets for your listing to let service providers know in which country and/or city the services will be required. You can specify up to 10 separate markets per listing.

3. Then, select the service providers you wish to invite to provide a quote for your requirements (you can add in preferred vendors and account managers); they’ll receive a notification that you’re seeking their response. 

4. Add any attachments and additional information, including technical details, to ensure service providers receive a clear indication of your requirements and therefore can provide the most accurate pricing. 

Managing your responses and quotes

Service providers you’ve requested quotes from should respond to you shortly after you’ve published your Marketplace listing with an ‘intent to bid’ on your listing. This will be followed up with a quote provided directly to you. If your listing is public, you may also receive quotes from the open market for your requirements. You’ll be able to easily view, manage, and respond to these quotes within your Cloudscene account.

We’ve built quality assurance processes into our platform so you should always only receive quotes back from the service providers that can fulfil your requirements, and they should provide a concise but detailed response on how they are best-suited to do so. 

Pricing is an excellent indicator for comparing and shortlisting quotes. If your team is clear on your budget for network spend before shortlisting your quotes, it should be easy to make that decision – you can then select and notify service providers with your response in just a few clicks.

Marketplace works best when both buyers and sellers are transparent in their communication so it’s best to ensure you respond to service providers in a timely manner and let them know the reason why their quote wasn’t chosen. Once you’ve taken those actions, service providers will be marked as successful or unsuccessful in your Cloudscene account making it easy to see the progress of your listing.

Tracking and monitoring your activities

Once you’ve selected and notified a service provider/s, you can organize service fulfilment outside of the platform (your contact details will be sent through to the successful service provider/s when you have selected them and it’s their responsibility to get in contact with you directly). 

The great thing about a centralized and digitized platform for procurement is that you’ll have access to all communications and activities to track and manage your process from start to finish. This makes reporting easy and enables you to stay on top of your time-to-market, your spend, your listing performance, and (depending on your permissions) your team’s procurement activities.

Getting your team involved 

Cloudscene works best when you collaborate with your team. Your colleagues will likely already be part of your Cloudscene company team as anyone who signs up for a Cloudscene account is automatically added as a team member to their relevant company account.

There are so many ways in which your team can collaborate to digitally procure network services on Marketplace, here’s how existing teams on Cloudscene have worked together across the platform:

ProcurementMarketingProductSalesExecutiveInvite your procurement team to source the optimum network services for your business, request quotes, and compare vendors.Get your marketing teammates on board to update your company profile and data which could improve searchability and rankings.Need help with researching and comparing services to achieve the best outcome and pricing? Sounds like a job for the product team.
Your sales team can respond to any inbound quote requests from network buyers to help fulfil their services.Bring in a colleague at the executive level to oversee and optimize teamwork, activities, and spend.

For more information, read our Buyer’s Guide to Sourcing Network Services on Cloudscene Marketplace, or feel free to contact our friendly team to talk about your requirements. 

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Are you working in procurement and need to source critical network services? We’ve got the connections to get you started. Find the right vendors and pricing to fulfil your network requirements with Cloudscene Marketplace. 

Backed by highly comprehensive industry data, Cloudscene enables you to search and match with global vendors – wherever and whenever you like. Learn more about sourcing on our platform here or create a free account and start listing your requirements on Marketplace.