Partner Article

Thomas Cook improves supplier management with eSourcing

Thomas Cook is one of the world’s leading leisure travel groups. Looking to improve management of its supplier relationships across Europe, Thomas Cook turned to Wax Digital web3 eSourcing to streamline its tender processes, improve collaboration and help generate cost reductions in core spend categories.

Thomas Cook was keen to embrace technology to aid procurement best practice. As part of a group wide scheme to find ways of working across the business more effectively, the procurement team was also keen to maintain a single view of procurement activity across Belgium, France, Holland, and the UK.

After searching for an intuitive, easy to use system which could support multiple currencies and languages, Thomas Cook trialled cloud based eSourcing to run an eTender event as a proof of concept.

A highly successful event confirmed the ease at which electronic tenders and auctions can be carried out and demonstrated how it would enable better management of supplier data and supplier relationships through an easily accessible, highly intuitive cloud based platform.

Wax Digital web3 eSourcing was rapidly rolled out in the UK and Belgium and while running eTender events was something Thomas Cook was keen to extend across many spend categories, the most immediate benefit that it delivered was a means to standardise the tender process and automate large parts of it.

Sam Warden, Head of Procurement and Property for Thomas Cook said: “The ease of use and functionality offered by cloud based eSourcing has given us a way to accurately share buying information in real-time and improved lines of communication, compliance and transparency between us and our suppliers.”

eSourcing is now the tool of choice for Thomas Cook buyers. It has supported creating an improved, open and transparent process for suppliers and made it simple to create and store multiple tender types, including Invitation to Tender (ITT), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP) Auctions and Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ). Evaluation of suppliers is then simplified as publishing, scoring and reviewing responses and awards is automated, delivering significant time and efficiency savings.

The project management functionality enabled by eSourcing has allowed all users to plan their buying activities so that all related information is stored in one place, helping to improve communication between the project teams and suppliers.

While many of the project teams have a preferred suppliers list, eSourcing has helped widen the net to introduce Thomas Cook to new entrants in the market. This enables buyers to benchmark the market without having to add suppliers first.

Sam Warden, Head of Procurement and Property at Thomas Cook said: “eSourcing has revolutionised our tendering processes, and we now have a far more efficient and formalised process in place. Issuing our terms and conditions to our suppliers at the tender stage saves time compared to having to resolve issues later in our process. The system’s ease of use means that we have been able to get up and running and onboard with our suppliers quickly.”

Thomas Cook uses the eAuction functionality offered by eSourcing for a range of spend categories including stationery, furniture, professional services, marketing and IT and has achieved significant savings. Across all spend categories Thomas Cook have saved a seven figure sum.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by katherine wilding .