You use this business process to create, publish, and change a bid or an RFx response in the supplier system. This enhances the security of the system by allowing the bidder to submit their bids or RFx responses from outside the SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) firewall.

After the RFx has been published by the strategic purchaser in SAP SRM, the invited bidders can create bids or RFx responses in the supplier system. You can also submit a bid or an RFx response on behalf of a supplier outside the firewall in the supplier system, through surrogate bidding.

In the case of an auction and during RFx response submission outside the firewall in the supplier system, bidders can indicate their participation prior to submitting a bid. The chat functionality is not available during RFx response submission outside the firewall in the supplier system.

Bidders are allowed to change their bids or RFx responses, and can make updates to their responses until the submission deadline. If the RFx is changed after it has been published, bidders are informed of the change by e-mail, and can make updates to their RFx response accordingly. Changes made to an RFx, bid, or RFx response result in the creation of a new version. You can use version comparison functionality to display the differences between versions.

RFx response modification allows bidders to offer different products and services than those requested by the purchaser.

The bidder (Bidder Company) master data object can be created in the SAP SRM system and replicated to the supplier system. A default logon and password is then automatically created. This password is e-mailed to the registered address of the bidder company. A representative from the bidder company can use this logon and password to create contact persons.

When RFx response submission outside the firewall is switched on, bidders and purchasers can only create contact persons in the supplier system, not in the SAP SRM system.