Response to Negotiations

After you have viewed the details of the negotiation document, you can determine the best response to create. The response document generated will help you provide a complete response by providing all necessary information.

Additionally, you can also assign a reference number to your response document and use it for your internal tracking.

When negotiating items for manufacturing, distribution, or direct material procurement, you can view the supplier item, manufacturer, and manufacturer part number for the inventory line items in the response spreadsheet attached in the negotiation invitation notification. Also, you can view the details while viewing a negotiation, creating a response, reviewing a response, and awarding the negotiation.

To facilitate seamless interaction between the Sourcing work area and Product Information Management (PIM) work area, an integration setup is required. For more information see Manage Integration of Additional Applications.

Supplier bidders can provide new supplier items when creating responses to both inventory and description-based line items. The new supplier items are copied to the purchasing documents generated after the award. In scenarios where there’s no supplier item for the inventory item, the new supplier item is automatically added to item relationships in Product Information Management (PIM) if enabled in BU configuration.

When creating a response to a negotiation with a backing requisition, the supplier bidders are presented with the supplier items coming from the requisition lines and can update them if needed. Similarly, when renegotiating an existing blanket purchase agreement, the suppliers can view and update the supplier items captured in the agreement.

You download the negotiation PDF document to view these details. You can respond to negotiations and identify their part number to provide an accurate quote. These fields are also available to suppliers in the response spreadsheets for efficient and accurate response preparation.

You can enter a zero price when responding to negotiations, thereby offering items for free or services at no cost for products still under warranty.

Consider these when you're working with supplier item, manufacturer, and manufacturer part numbers:

The supplier item and manufacturer part number must be associated with an inventory item in the item master to be derived and displayed in negotiations.
If multiple supplier items and multiple manufacturer part numbers are mapped to an inventory item, then none of the part numbers will be displayed in negotiations.
The supplier item, manufacturer, and manufacturer part number information is currently not displayed in the negotiation PDF document attached to the supplier invitation notification. It's recommended that suppliers download the negotiation PDF documents from supplier portal.
Alternatively, if the supplier item, manufacturer, and manufacturer part number are required in the negotiation invitation notification, then it is recommended to use the split PDF + Lines only Response spreadsheet, which has the line item information displayed separately in the csv file.

When completing the response document, consider the following points as well as the following topics:

You can enter notes into the response document at the header and line levels, and provide attachments for your response.
You can print a .pdf version of your response for offline review before submitting the response, or after submitting your response for your records.
The information you're required to provide can vary between negotiations. If you haven't provided all the required response information, you will receive an error message when you try to submit your response and be prompted to supply the missing information.
If the negotiation creator has allowed alternate lines, you can create a new response line in addition to responding to the originally defined line. You might want to create an alternate line if you want to offer different price breaks or other line information. Your additional response line and your response to the original line are both considered when the category manager analyzes and awards the negotiation.
If the negotiation creator has allowed it, you can create multiple responses within a round of negotiations. When you create multiple responses, you can offer different line information (as you can in alternate line responding), and you can also offer different responses to other negotiation attributes such as requirements, negotiation terms, or contract terms.

Response Controls

The category manager may have defined any of several parameters to control how you can respond to the negotiations:

You may be required to offer the entire quantity asked for, or you may be able to offer partial quantities. For example, the negotiation line may ask for 1000 units. You may be required to offer to sell the entire 1000 units, or you may be able to offer to sell fewer.
You may not be required to respond to all the negotiation lines. In this case, you can choose which lines you respond to.
You may be able to see other suppliers' contract terms, notes, and attachments.
If the category manager has allowed multiple responses, you can create additional alternate responses to the negotiation as well as a primary response.
You may be able to revise your current response
If the negotiation goes into multiple rounds of responding, you may be required to submit your second round response price at a level lower than the price from the first round of responding.

Requirements

The negotiation may include questions soliciting information about your company or your practices. Such questions are called requirements. The Category Manager may have defined such requirements. If they're defined, a box labeled Requirements appears in the chain of train stops. If responses are required, you must provide an answer. Your responses to requirements may be used along with all other response information when evaluating your response

Line Price and Other Information

The line price information you're required to provide depends on the negotiation type (auction, RFQ, RFI) and the type of outcome ( purchase order, blanket purchase agreement, contract purchase agreement). Line price information can include price or quantity offered.

Additional Line Information

There may also be information you're required to supply at the negotiation line level. An icon will appear in the Required Details column of the Lines table for any line which requires additional response information:

If the Category Manager entered price breaks/price tiers, you must respond to them. Additionally, if allowed, you may be able to modify or offer your own price breaks.

Cost factors are additional costs beyond price on which the Category Manager wants to negotiate. Typical cost factors might include storage, transportation, or tooling.

Line attributes typically ask for additional details about the product or service you're offering. Your responses to line attributes are used along with line and line price information when evaluating your response.

Note: If allowed by the negotiation, you can create alternate response lines in addition to your response to the line defined to the negotiation. You may want to do this if you want to suggest alternate line information such as different price breaks. All of your response lines are considered competing responses, and the category manager can award business to any of them.To add an alternate line, while on the Create Response: Lines page, click the plus sign in the Create Alternate column for any line for which you want to create an alternate. If there is no plus sign for that line, you can't create an alternate line and can enter only a single response.

Spreadsheet Responding

As an alternative to responding online, or if the negotiation contains many requirements or lines to which to respond, you may choose to use the spreadsheet method of responding. With this method, you export a spreadsheet from the application, completing it offline by entering your response information into the spreadsheet. When completed, you import the spreadsheet back to the application. If there are any errors, you're notified immediately so you can correct them import again.

Additional Bidding Features

Proxy bidding and mass price reduction are additional features available to you when responding to auctions.

Proxy bidding enables the application to automatically rebid for you when a competitor submits a lower winning bid. The application automatically rebids with a lower price when a competitor submits a winning bid. When you submit your initial bid, you specify a value (percentage of the initial price offered or a flat amount) and the minimum price you're willing to offer. On any subsequent rebids, the offer price is reduced by a value that you can specify. This happens automatically until you reach your minimum price.

Mass price reduction lets you to reduce the prices being offered on all or a subset of negotiation lines by a set amount. This frees you from having to update each line's price individually.

Online Messaging

Throughout the responding process, you can communicate with the buying organization by using online messaging. You can participate in multiple online conversations within the context of a negotiation. All messages you initiate are addressed to the buying organization and can be viewed by all members of the buying organization who are also participating in the negotiation. You can reply to message you're sent by an individual participant of the buying organization.