Supplier Management

Engaging, motivating and enabling vendors to participate in an eProcurement initiative is crucial for its success. State governments work with a much broader range of vendors than the private sector, making supplier enrollment and training a more complex undertaking. Epylon understands the challenges and needs of suppliers, and has built an entire organization dedicated to vendor management.

Epylon's vendor adoption and enablement services involve leveraging the company's established processes and methodologies to effectively and efficiently educate and engage a critical mass of suppliers for a state eProcurement initiative. Epylon has also developed a vendor portal that serves as a central online vendor management point for all suppliers.

Vendor Adoption and Enablement
Vendor adoption occurs at the buying organization level as well as the supplier level. Epylon works with government organizations to understand their current supplier processes, and then customizes its vendor adoption methodology to meet the specific needs of the state.

Epylon creates customized vendor communication materials designed to educate suppliers on the eProcurement initiative and to provide the supply base with the information they need to participate in the eProcurement initiative.

Throughout the planning, deployment and maintenance phases of an eProcurement implementation, Epylon provides vendors with a dedicated account manager and a supplier help desk. Epylon account managers and help desk representatives leverage their supply chain knowledge and experience to help suppliers create an implementation plan that maximizes the opportunity for success, while minimizing resource impacts.

Vendor Portal
Large state-level eProcurement initiatives typically include multiple, disparate applications that all require current vendor profile data such as contact, billing, remit to, and ordering information. Entering and maintaining this data in multiple locations can be confusing to suppliers.

Epylon has developed a vendor portal that serves as a central online vendor management point for all suppliers. The vendor portal eliminates the need for suppliers to enter and maintain data on multiple applications. It also contains additional information that is pertinent to suppliers such as initiative implementation plans, starter kits, benefit information and supplier focused FAQs.

The vendor portal enables states to classify, sort and assign status to vendors based on specified criteria. It also works with a government organization's back-end systems eliminating the need for costly extensions and upgrades of existing systems.

For more detailed information on Epylon's supplier management services and methodologies, please contact stategov@epylon.com.