What is The Procurement Management Process?

Published on: 10 February 2020 Last Updated on: 13 September 2024

Procurement contracts can often be very overwhelming to create and manage. It involves a lot of different moving parts, from negotiating to price, setting out milestones, defining the scope of work and so much more. You want to ensure the top quality of work for your company without incurring too many extra costs. Learning about the procurement management process can help you navigate this journey with a bit more ease and confidence.

What is the procurement contract management process?

Having a procurement contract management process involves managing the ordering, receipt, and approval of materials from suppliers. It also deals with managing relations with suppliers and sellers. By having an established procurement contract management process, you can ensure that the materials and services provided meet your needs.

What does the procurement management process look like?

The process of procurement management will look different from any project, but loosely follows the following workflow:

Before you even think of procuring anything, your company will realize it needs a certain product or service. Maybe it is something as simple as new computer monitors for one department, or a much bigger project like the construction of a new building as your company expands.

Planning

In this stage, your team will smooth out the details related to the project, determine the budget, and start to draft out a contract. You will begin to write SOW (statements of work) to serve as a document outlining the work being contracted, for all outsider contractors you work with. Check out a sample statement of work here.

Depending on the size of your company and who is in charge of purchasing, you may need to request approval from a higher-up at this point in the procurement management process. A senior manager may need to approve budgets and make amendments to the statement of work.

Requesting quotes

After approval is given, whether that is from a manager or from yourself, you can send out a request for quotations (RFQ) to various sellers. This is when different companies bid for your project. Depending on the risk involved, whether that be physical or financial, there may be more or fewer bidders.

Reviewing and finalizing proposals

This is the stage where your team selects the vendor you want to work with. Usually, teams will have a set of criteria that will use to determine which seller to go with. The reputation of the company and prior experience working with them may also come into play during decision-making.

Negotiation and signing

Once you’ve finalized your selection, your team will have to negotiate with them. After both the buyer and seller are happy with the procurement contract, they will sign the contract and purchase order (PO) will be sent to the seller to purchase materials. At this stage, the contract is active and the project is underway.

Managing and overseeing contractors

The procurement management process doesn’t quite end there. Having someone request frequent status updates and oversee the project will help you keep up-to-date. The progress can be tracked down and in this way you can prevent your company from getting blind-sided by huge issues late on. Monitoring and tracking their work will help you understand if the project is going as planned. If things aren’t going well, at least you can take action earlier in the project than react to it at the end.

Having a records management system in place will make things much easier at the end of the contract as you move closer to payment.

End of procurement contract

Once the contractor completes the work set out in the contract, the procurement management process has ended. This is when the contract formally releases liability and payment is processed. At this stage, invoices, records and other documents from both parties are matched and compared against to ensure that the fees are correct, this is usually achieved with the help of a purchase requisition platform like Coupa’s system.

Knowing what the procurement process is like is integral to any business. You may be on either end of the process, either buying or selling to someone. Governmental bodies often undergo procurement to take on projects like marketing or auditing.

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

View all posts

3 Factors That Determine Your Personal Loan Interest Rate

Personal loans are collateral-free loans, making them most people’s first choice when seeking finance from an external source. Apart from the ease, you can access a hefty amount to fund a range of personal loan for your personal need. However, being an unsecured loan, personal loan interest rates are relatively higher than those of secured loans. The interest rate on a personal loan depends on various factors. Firstly, it depends on the type of loan you choose, fixed or floating interest personal loan. Further, it alters based on how well you qualify for the loan as per the lender’s personal loan eligibility criteria. Typically, these criteria are based on your age, income, profession and credit score. But first, take a look at the ongoing personal loan interest rates in the country so that you can make a wise borrowing decision. Present Personal Loan Interest Rates in India Interest rates on loans are linked to the repo rate. An increase in the repo rate increases loan interest rates and vice versa. Recently, the RBI cut the repo rate by 25 bps for the third time this year, and currently, it stands at 5.75%. Further, the weighted average interest rate on loans rose from 10.38% in January to 10.42% in April, indicating negligible movement. However, experts opine that you can expect more rate cuts in the coming months as the RBI has moved from a neutral to accommodative monetary policy stance. Now that you know of the broader factors that affect your personal loan interest rate, take a look at 3 important factors that are specific to your financial profile. Your Credit Score Your credit score is a reflection of your creditworthiness and past repayment behavior. A good score of 750 and above implies that you have repaid all your past debts on time. Thus, lenders categorize you as a low-risk applicant and offer competitive interest rates on a personal loan. Conversely, a score lower than 750 shows that you carry some amount of risk. He ce, you may have to pay a higher interest rate or settle for a low loan amount. Your Income A high income means that you are capable of repaying the personal loan on time, and this reduces the lender’s risk. As a result, they are likely to charge you a lower personal loan interest rate. In contrast, if your income seems insufficient, you are more likely to default and may not have the resources to repay the loan in full. As this poses a high risk to the lender and it has no collateral to fall back on, you have to pay a greater amount as interest. Your Relationship With The Lender If you have an existing business relationship with your lender and have displayed responsible credit behavior, in the interest of retaining you as a customer, the lender may offer you a competitive interest rate. Now that you know the factors that determine your personal loan interest rate, work towards securing the loan on competitive terms. To ensure this, compare lenders and their offerings before applying for a personal loan in order to bag the best deal. For instance, genuine lenders like Bajaj Finance have simple personal loan eligibility criteria and minimum documentation so you can qualify for a loan easily. Once approved, you can access up to Rs.25 lakh personal loan at a nominal interest rate and repay it over a flexible tenor spanning 12 to 60 months. Further, you can avail this loan on a Flexi facility that lets you withdraw on the go and pay interest only on the amount utilized. Additionally, you can pay interest-only EMIs throughout the tenor and repay the principal only when the tenor is up. This way, you can manage your finances and save up to 45% on EMIs. To view tailor-made deals and avail an online personal loan in a single step, check your pre-approved personal loan offer from Bajaj Finserv right away. Read Also: Why Personal Lenders Like SkyCap Financial Provide A Better Lending Experience Lining Up For A Loan – How To Secure A Good Loan

Major financial problems that can affect a new business

For a new business just fresh out of the concept stage, there’s a lot of excitement ahead. However, there are often troubles on the horizon, and these tend to revolve around money issues. Finance streams may be in place when the business is first created, for example, but they can quickly dry up as time goes on. It’s expensive to hire staff, and this can often push a firm well into the problem zone. Here are some ways that new businesses can get around these problems. No finance streams : When a new business first launches, it’s usually the case that there’s some form of finance behind it – at least for a short time. The entrepreneur themselves might be financing it from savings, for example, while there may also be an investor. The long-term plan is usually to have incoming cash replace this stream once it dries out – but revenues and profits don’t come overnight, and in fact, they often don’t materialize for a long time. Instead of relying on external finance providers, it often makes sense for a new business to be “bootstrapped”. Bootstrapping essentially means cutting down costs until you reach a stage where you have the funds to raise them back up. Instead of hiring an office space, for example, why not knuckle down and work hard in your spare room until you have enough – or almost enough – sustainable income to pay for a desk somewhere? It may be tough doing this sort of thing at first, but it could be the difference between business survival and failure. Staffing costs : In a bygone age of manufacturing and industry, the main cost that businesses faced was equipment. This also tended to be where companies made cutbacks when times were hard, either by downsizing their factories, leasing out their equipment or something similar. However, for many modern American businesses, the main cost is staff. Staff members are, in general, expensive. Some, such as coders and executives, command high salaries that can quickly drain a firm’s budget. Even when a person is hired on a lower salary, there are plenty of extra considerations to take into account, which can make the hire expensive: from the additional insurance premium that a firm might need to pay on their office space to the additional computer and desk space that the staff member might need, the costs can mount up. It makes sense for many firms to hire contractors instead of as they come with far fewer financial responsibilities for the firm – and the arrangement gives both parties the flexibility to move on if needed. With umbrella companies available to manage the tax side of contractor pay, there’s no need to worry about the effect that it might have on your HR or accounting departments either. Running a new business is exhilarating in some ways, but it also comes with its problems. Finance is almost always the big one – and from large staffing costs to dried-up finance streams, there’s a lot that can go wrong. However, by focusing on finance methods such as bootstrapping and choosing contractors instead of employed workers, there are ways that you can get that profit and loss sheet under control and move towards a more sustainable financial future for your business. Read Also : Invest In A New Car, Without A Financial Liability Debunking 7 Notorious Bankruptcy Myths

What you need to know about Ethereum mining

Ethereum mining is one of the essential means to develop your business in the best possible ways. Work out the plans that can help you to achieve your goals in the correct order. Do not make your choices in grey while you want to develop your trading business in the correct way. Ethereum mining is possible in a number of ways Crypto mining is a new money-making frontier without much risks involved. And while Bitcoin is becoming less profitable to mine by the day, Ethereum is still a solid choice. It gives solid returns (assuming the price of ETH doesn’t change too much!). Today, let’s see how we can have a setup for Ethereum mining! 1. Get your Mining Setup Together Mining basically means running an algorithm again and again until you find the “solution”. Once said the solution is found, you are paid by the system with Ethereum Mining can become computationally expensive and can be demanding on CPU or mining hardware. To have a chance of mining and therefore earning, a decently powerful computer setup is the absolute minimum. More power would potentially mean more earnings on average. Ethereum Mining can help your business to grow at a rapid pace. Work out the plans that can work well in your favor. In the case of Ethereum, it pays out 5 ETH roughly every 15 seconds to whoever solves the mining algorithm (though this may change in the future when Ethereum switches over to a Proof of Stake algorithm) So,first step would be to get a computer and/or graphics card setup. A standard, absolute minimum setup consists of 6 video cards. These should be a minimum of 3GB, and a motherboard with 6 PCI slots minimum. The other crucial parts would be a CPU, Memory of at least 4 GB, a decent power supply capable of handling of 80% of the output capacity, and a 60 GB hard drive. It’s also recommended to connect the rig to the Internet via a wired Ethernet cable connection; WiFi isn’t really recommended. The above rig is optimized for Ethereum mining using the current algorithm and mining difficulty. It collects a decent 0.5 ETH per month but, as is with cryptocurrencies, things change fast. 2. Get a Digital Wallet For you to earn and use cryptocurrencies, you need a digital wallet. Wallets are nothing more than placeholders where your coins are stored online. You have tons of choices in this area, with many different factors too big to cover in this guide. Ethereum mining can help your business to grow in the right direction in a short time span. Work out the plans that can work well in your favor. Once you have a wallet, it’s time to decide: 3. Do you Mine Alone or join Mining Pool Mining at it alone sounds like a great idea. The reward is much bigger and it’s all yours. However, this only works if you consistently beat thousands of others in solving the algorithm first. Trust us, with those odds, it won’t happen very often To successfully solo mine, you will need an upwards of 100+ graphics cards at your disposal. Not to mention taking the brunt of the enormous electricity costs, taking care of heating problems and ventilation, and the huge upfront cost of buying the hardware. Solo mining is possible and, yes can be rewarding, but you need to know what’s in store here. Mining pools are a collection of mining rigs which combine their hash rates together for a better chance of mining Ethereum coins. With crypto mining pools, you get a steady income even if you mine a block by proxy. It’s all about a collective group effort. There are lots of factors you should consider before joining a mining pool. The size of the pool, or the number people joining, is an important consideration. More people in the pool means there’s a bigger chance of mining a block and getting a reward. On the flipside, however, the payout per person gets smaller, since it gets split between more people. It might be worthwhile to try different pools to see which one you like best. But here are some we recommend NiceHash is a relatively easy to use and quick to set up mining pool to join. The nice thing about it is that it automatically searches for the best algorithm or cryptocurrency to mine, not just Ethereum. This can give more value for your rig in the long run. It should be noted that NiceHash also pays in Bitcoin, regardless if you were mining Ethereum or something else To join, you first need to download the AMD or Nvidia program installer from their site. This application will scan your hardware setup and install software as necessary. Afterward, you enter your Bitcoin wallet address. It should be noted that you need a BItcoin wallet setup before joining NiceHash. Else, you won’t get paid. Once entered, click on the benchmark button and start another scan. You’re then ready to mine NiceHash runs at an overall hash rate that is 20% less. This might seem concerning, but the switching feature more than makes up for this, as it can potentially up your profitability than just focusing on one coin alone. Another option is Nanopool. It is currently one of the largest mining pool joinable with 130,000 active members and counting. Nanopool also pays out to miners who are close to solving the algorithm, so that’s nifty as well. It charges a fee of 1%. Similar to Nanopool is Ethermine, which has a similar structure and fee. For mining software, we recommend Claymore Dual Miner. This allows you to mine two different coins at the same time. This works brilliantly for mining Ethereum and another crypto coin. Since Ethereum is more memory intensive, the processor can be used to mine for more processor heavy crypto coins. Thus allowing you to mine at twice the speed. Both Nanopool and Ethermine support Claymore. 4. Start mining! Once you’ve installed your choice of mining software, just run the appropriate program and your computer will then automatically start mining. Remember to always keep the program running, preferably 24/7. 5. Check your earnings and profit! After a while, you might want to check how much ETH you’re earning. To do so, you need to go to your mining pool’s website and type in your digital wallet address. You should be able to see how much ETH you’ve been earning thus far. Ethereum Mining can help your business to grow and move at a rapid pace. But earnings are different from profits. To truly calculate how much you are profiting, you need to consider electricity costs. To do this, you need to find out how many mega hashes per second (Mh/S) your setup is contributing to the pool. Next, go to the numerous mining calculators available online. Supply the relevant information to see how much you’re really earning! 6. Improve your Results There are a lot of ways you can improve your results and therefore your profits. Techniques such as overclocking and undervolting are worth looking at. What doesn’t change is the need for constant learning and improvement in this area since changes come in very rapidly. You need to be on your toes if you want to keep the profits rolling in. Happy mining! Read Also: Securing Mobile App Development With Blockchain Technology What You Should Know Before Using ExpertOption (more…)

What is The Procurement Management Process?

What is the procurement contract management process?