Navigating tariff volatility with Keelvar

We previously explored the evolving landscape of procurement and the critical need for businesses to embrace Dynamic Market Sourcing – a flexible, technology-enabled approach that allows procurement teams to turn volatile market conditions into a competitive edge. As unpredictability increasingly becomes the new normal, organizations must arm themselves with tools capable of navigating such complexity effectively. This article explores procurement technologies that can help organizations face this complexity, and dives into reasons why Keelvar stands out as a solution enabling procurement teams to remain agile.

Why Dynamic Market Sourcing Matters Today

Dynamic Market Sourcing represents a significant shift away from traditional sourcing models. It facilitates frequent, transparent and data-driven engagement with suppliers, allowing organizations to go to market much faster and more frequently which in turn, makes them more adaptable to market shifts. This approach is essential in the context of today's procurement landscape, characterized by rapid fluctuations in price, capacity, and availability.

However, to successfully execute a dynamic sourcing strategy, organizations require solutions that support the increase in both event throughput (i.e. the additional workload that goes into running more events), and in data complexity (i.e. collecting more, richer bid data and leaning into this to drive the sourcing strategies of the future). 

Autonomous Sourcing 

Reducing the time it takes to go to market with an RFx and make an award decision is one of the surest ways to make organizations more reactive to market changes. As such, sourcing automation naturally emerges as a technology perfectly suited to a dynamic market sourcing methodology. 

By automating the workload required to launch a sourcing event, Autonomous Sourcing frees up procurement teams’ time to focus on strategic tasks such as making the best award decisions, keeping up with market trends and disruptions, and fostering better relationships with suppliers which can greatly strengthen their supply chains. 

Sourcing Optimization 

However, the increase in volume of sourcing events can tempt procurement professionals to simplify the ‘data crunching’ and over index on price factors. This is partly due to the limitations of existing sourcing automation technology which tend to focus on price factors, but don’t do as good a job of taking into account more complex but equally important non-price factors such as suppliers’ ESG performance. 

Sourcing Optimization is a technology which perfectly suits a dynamic market sourcing strategy. It saves time by simplifying the process of creating and launching sourcing events, and by completely cutting out the ‘data crunching’ required to make an award decision. In addition to this, procurement teams can create and evaluate complex scenarios which allows them to make an award decision that brings them closer to their procurement objectives.

How does Keelvar Help with Being Agile?

Keelvar is uniquely positioned to facilitate a dynamic market sourcing approach as it is the only provider of both Advanced Sourcing Optimization and Autonomous Sourcing in the ProcureTech space. Keelvar also recently released its new Rate Manager, which further enhances Keelvar customers’ agility and adaptability to market changes.

1. Sourcing Optimizer (SO)

Keelvar’s Sourcing Optimizer unlocks the capability to handle the most complex procurement scenarios, allowing teams to analyze vast amounts of data – including non-price criteria such as sustainability, diversity, and risk factors – in a way previously impossible. With SO, sourcing teams can rapidly build scenarios, run sophisticated analyses, and make strategic, data-backed decisions. 

Example of SO features that directly help with Dynamic Market Sourcing: 

• Intelligent scenario rules: use Gen AI to build complex scenarios in a few seconds. Save time without making any compromise on the quality of your award decision. 
• Event templates: Go to market at speed by repurposing the hard work you’ve already done. Use our out-of-the-box templates or make your own sourcing events repeatable.
• AI-powered bid-sheet configuration: Let our AI create and launch sourcing events at speed. Simply import your bid sheet and we’ll configure it in seconds. 

2. Autonomous Sourcing (AS)

Keelvar’s Autonomous Sourcing solution dramatically reduces procurement teams’ manual workloads by automating high-volume, routine sourcing tasks. This ensures the best sourcing practices are consistently applied and executed at scale, freeing up valuable time for teams to concentrate on strategic initiatives and relationship-building activities. 

Example of AS features that directly help with Dynamic Market Sourcing: 

• Intelligent intake: Empower your end users (from your procurement function or other) to trigger automated sourcing events, within the rules set for them. 
• Mulit-round bidding: Make your sourcing events competitive, even when they’re automated. Suppliers can’t differentiate manual from automated events, so you’re driving competition and win-win scenarios even on lower value spend. 
• Automatic supplier selection: Reduce rogue spend and consolidate your suppliers by defining approved suppliers to automatically invite for each workflow. 

3. Rate Manager (RM)

Keelvar’s Rate Management solution centralizes and streamlines the management of supplier rates. It automates the capture and updating of rates which ensures procurement teams can effortlessly track rate changes, quickly respond to rate expirations by automatically triggering new sourcing events, and maintain a clear audit trail, greatly enhancing transparency and operational efficiency.

Example of RM features that directly help with Dynamic Market Sourcing: 

• Automatic rate creation: Configure your SO and AS events to automatically create rate cards – no integration needed, and no more manual export/import. 
• Automatic rate refresh: Monitor rates which are about to expire and automatically trigger sourcing events to refresh those rates when needed. 
• Benchmarking integrations: Integrate Keelvar with benchmarking providers (e.g. Xeneta, DAT, SONAR, etc.) to automatically trigger sourcing events when your rates no longer align with benchmarks. 

Key Takeaway

Keelvar’s strength lies in its unique combination of optimization, automation, and ease of use. It is specifically designed to provide procurement teams with tools that not only handle complexity effortlessly but also scale seamlessly across various spend types and categories.

In today’s unpredictable procurement environment, staying agile and resilient isn't just beneficial, it's essential. Keelvar is uniquely equipped to support businesses in this journey, turning market volatility into an opportunity for sustained competitive advantage.

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