Supplier Evaluation 
Over the last years, the importance of a generic evaluation tool within collaborative scenarios has increased as a result of the need for customers to reduce procurement costs, enhance and optimize collaboration, and globalize procurement activities. This is possible with supplier evaluation. It also fulfills the certification requirements of suppliers.
It not only evaluates suppliers and retrieves rich evaluation data, but rather evaluates and optimizes the whole procurement process. In other words, supplier evaluation is a part of an analytical application within SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM).
To select a new supplier, you need information to determine whether the supplier is interesting for your procurement activities. This can be achieved using a request for information (RFI), in response to which the suppliers provide information about themselves. The buying company is then able to evaluate this information or make an improvement as an audit. This can be seen as the first step in a supplier evaluation tool. Afterwards, the supplier is included in the procurement process and purchase orders, confirmations, and invoices are processed. These business transactions can then be evaluated, for example, using surveys and scores, with a view to improving supplier performance. To enhance the performance, it might be necessary to hold feedback meetings to discuss the evaluation with the supplier and define targets, which could be reviewed again. In this way the target can be optimized, leading to an optimized procurement process and higher supplier performance. Procurement costs are reduced and the production process becomes more stable.
Compared to other reporting scenarios in SAP SRM, the scenario for supplier evaluation is a more complex process. To configure the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI) and the SAP SRM systems for supplier evaluation, several extra actions have to be carried out in addition to the common configuration steps.
Customizing depends on where you evaluate your suppliers and where you capture the scores of the suppliers. For example, you obtain the scores in the SAP SRM or SAP NetWeaver BI system using questionnaires, or you use automatic scores from the SAP ERP vendor evaluation. It is also possible to integrate scores from other supplier evaluation systems or tools using the common interface.
Afterwards, you can monitor all evaluation data in SAP NetWeaver BI.
Technical Data
Available as of Release | SAP SRM 5.0 |
|---|---|
BI Content Add-On Release | BI Content 7.0..2 Add-On SP01 |
Features
Supplier evaluation uses a questionnaire tool. This tool is called Web Survey Cockpit and enables the customer to define and maintain surveys and questionnaires for manual evaluation on document level. Customers can select the criteria they want to evaluate (for example, delivery reliability and quality). They can also define when the evaluation is to occur and create questionnaires for invoices, confirmations, and supplier lists. The answers in the questionnaires can be changed subsequently.
The questionnaires are included in SAP SRM processes in that a questionnaire has to be filled out when a document (confirmation, invoice) is posted (online evaluation). A new browser window opens up, and the Web Survey questionnaire can be filled out as documents are being maintained. In case of supplier lists, in contrast, the evaluation has to be started proactively by the user.
The questionnaires are also included in the SAP NetWeaver BI system where you can evaluate confirmations, invoices, and suppliers on product or product category level (offline evaluation, because it is not integrated in a document posting process like confirmation). These suppliers and documents can originate from SAP SRM and/or SAP ERP systems. The questionnaires included in SAP NetWeaver BI can be accessed from different roles and users directly from the OLTP system or using a URL.
It is also possible to enhance evaluation data with the SAP ERP automatic vendor evaluation scores, or with scores from a third party tool.
The following table sums up the different ways in which the supplier evaluation process can be performed, depending on the system you evaluate in and the event that triggers evaluation:
Evaluation System |
Event that triggers evaluation |
Evaluation mode |
Evaluation data |
SAP SRM |
Confirmation is posted |
Manual online evaluation/e-mail |
Confirmation (SAP SRM) |
Invoice is posted |
Manual online evaluation/e-mail |
Invoice (SAP SRM) |
|
User starts evaluation proactively from the supplier list |
Manual online evaluation |
Suppliers from supplier list (SAP SRM) |
|
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence |
User starts evaluation proactively accessing questionnaire from a BI query via role menu or URL |
Manual offline evaluation Can be scheduled |
Confirmations, invoices, suppliers from OLTP systems (SAP SRM, SAP ERP, and others) |
SAP ERP or other |
Defined by the system settings |
Automatic |
Defined by the system settings |
Note
You can combine all these processes. To report on all evaluation data in SAP NetWeaver BI, you define grouping and weighting rules in supplier evaluation Customizing in SAP NetWeaver BI.
SAP NetWeaver BI enables the customer to evaluate the data gathered from the surveys and questionnaires. The information can help to select suppliers and negotiate conditions. The questionnaire data is updated in the delta structures and extracted into SAP NetWeaver BI.
When the data has been extracted from SAP NetWeaver BI delta structures into SAP NetWeaver BI, and when the DataStore object and the InfoCube have been updated with grouping and weighting, this information is available in SAP SRM or SAP ERP using queries. These queries serve as additional information to support the procurement process. They are shown in the supplier list of SAP SRM, in the Sourcing application, in SAP Bidding Engine, in contracts or in the SAP ERP system using a Web link in the role menu.