STRATEGIC SOURCING

1.4.1 Strategic Sourcing with RFx

You can use this business scenario to source goods using RFx (request for information, request for proposal, and/or request for quotation). You can use this business scenario with or without integration of the sourcing application. The sourcing application helps you, as a professional purchaser, to process your requirements and to determine the best source of supply. You can also integrate document storage functionality – maintained in cFolders – in the RFx. After you have received bids from suppliers, you can create a purchase order or contract (local or global outline agreement) directly from the sourcing

application or in SAP Bidding Engine as a result of the RFx.

Prerequisites

You can implement this business scenario with different releases of the relevant application components.

However, only certain combinations are valid.

For more information, see:

 SAP SRM Master Guide on SAP Service Marketplace at http://service.sap.com/instguides

 Scenario & Process Component List on SAP Service Marketplace at http://service.sap.com/scl

Process

1. Processing Shopping Carts

2. Processing Purchase Requisitions in ERP 3. Searching for Sources of Supply Centrally 4. Negotiating Contracts

5. Processing Bidding Events

6. Processing Collaborative Bidding Events Using cFolders 7. Evaluating Bids or RFx Responses

8. Processing Bids and RFx Responses in Supplier Self-Services 9. Analyzing Sourcing with RFx

1.4.1.1 Processing Shopping Carts

You can use this business process to create a shopping cart and add items to it. For recurring orders, you can also use previous shopping carts and templates provided by the purchasing department. Account assignment is then checked in the back-end system. You can order the shopping cart now or later, and check the status of the shopping cart at any time. If the shopping cart contains incomplete data, you can run a completion workflow to check and complete the necessary delivery data. Once the delivery data is complete, the approval workflow starts.

You can also assign responsibility for requirements from a shopping cart to a different purchasing group.

You can do this manually or automatically. You might want to do this, for example, if the person who was originally responsible is absent, or if changes have been made to the purchasing group structure.

Note

You can create a shopping cart using the Shopping Cart Wizard or the one-screen shopping cart with limited functionality.

Process

The following business process runs in SAP SRM Server:

1. Create shopping cart

2. Search for products or services

You can select products and services (for example, external staffing) from catalogs, or enter a description or a product ID from the product master.

3. Select items and add to shopping cart 4. Display overview

For example, you can display item details and add documents to the shopping cart.

5. Display account assignment 6. Order shopping cart

7. Check shopping cart status 8. Approve shopping cart

This process step is modified if you have activated the SRM, Approval Process (SRM_APF_IMPR_1) business function. You can use this business function to accelerate your approval processes, and use them more efficiently when you use the process-controlled workflow.

1.4.1.2 Processing Purchase Requisition in ERP

Prerequisite

The manual creation or processing of purchase requisitions can be achieved in two ways: using the relevant backend transactions, or using the SPPR (Single Processing of Purchase Requisition) Web Dynpro application.

You can only use the Web Dynpro application, if you have activated the Materials Management - Enhancements in Procurement (LOG_MM_CI_3) business function.

Purpose

You can use this business process to process purchase requisitions in ERP. A purchase requisition is a demand that is released to the purchasing department. The demand can be created as follows:

● Automatically, for example as result of a material requirement planning (MRP) run, or by assigning components or services to a maintenance or production order

● Alternatively, the purchase requisition may be:

 ○ Entered manually

 ○ Transferred from another system, for example from a shopping cart that has been approved:

 ■ In a Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) classic scenario

 ■ From Supply Network Planning (SNP) or Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PP/DS) of a Supply Chain Management (SCM) module

The accounting data is assigned and checked during processing of the purchase requisition. Sourcing, including initiating a request for quotation (RFQ) process, can be executed based on a purchase requisition as well as assignment of documents.

It is possible to establish approval processes for purchase requisitions. For purchase requisitions with long life cycles, a change management differs between several versions.

Process Flow

The following business process runs in SAP ERP:

1. Create/process purchase requisitions

2. Release purchase requisitions

3. Assign source to purchase requisitions

4. Generate/manage versions of purchase requisitions 5. Monitor/view list display of purchase requisitions

The manual creation or processing of purchase requisitions can be achieved in two ways: using the relevant backend transactions, or using the SPPR (Single Processing of Purchase Requisition) Web Dynpro application.

1.4.1.3 External Sourcing for Purchase Requisitions

In order to generate follow-on documents for purchase requisitions created in the SAP ERP system, you must assign a valid source of supply. If there are no valid sources of supply in SAP ERP, the purchaser can carry out external sourcing using the SAP SRM system.

There are two processing modes available for transferring purchase requisitions to the SAP SRM system:

 Background mode

Purchase requisitions are transferred to SAP SRM automatically, and are created as external requirement documents in the SAP SRM system. Subsequently, the purchaser can process and convert the external requirement document into a follow-on document (for example, a purchase order, contract, RFx or auction) directly in the SAP SRM sourcing application.

 Online mode

Purchasers transfer purchase requisitions manually using the Collaborative Processing of Purchase Requisition (CPPR) application. In online mode, purchasers can choose to either transfer purchase requisitions to SAP SRM by creating an external requirement document in SAP SRM, as in

background mode, or create an RFx for the purchase requisition directly in SAP SRM. If the purchaser chooses to create an RFx directly in SAP SRM, no external requirement is generated for the purchase requisition.

Note

Before you configure this process, you must first configure the basic settings for the Plan-Driven Procurement with Plant Maintenance business scenario. You do this in SAP Solution Manager under <project name> SAP SRM <release> Basic Settings for Driven Procurement Basic Settings for Plan-Driven Procurement with Plant Maintenance .

Process

The following business process runs in SAP SRM:

1. Start Collaborative Processing of Purchase Requisitions (CPPR) application 2. Create RFx from CPPR

3. Transfer purchase requisition to SAP SRM sourcing application