Quick tendering in short processing time and at higher quality

This will definitely put an end to an era described as “manual execution in procurement” by Ralf Winter, head of procurement and general manager for material management. Major partner companies such as Mainova in Frankfurt, Badenova AG & Co. KG in Freiburg, ESWE Versorgungs AG in Wiesbaden, Stadtwerke Hannover AG and N-ERGY AG in Nuremberg have already chosen myFUTURA. In the Thüga group, the roles between the partner companies and Thüga as the core of the group are distributed synergistically. The affiliates work actively for their local and regional markets, while Thüga assumes the networking features such as the attraction of new partners, giving expert advice as well as the coordination and presentation of procurement projects within the group. Thüga has the task to carry out the so-called mandate shopping for its affiliates by bundling, tendering and awarding A-items such as cables, pipes, transformers, electricity meters and gas meters. In addition, for many affiliates, civil engineering and installation services for energy networks are put out for tender over one single standard item list for services.

Exploiting purchasing synergies

The aim of joint purchasing: scale and synergistic effects, to achieve better purchasing conditions and to avoid redundant procurement processes. The costs of construction and maintenance of public power supplies is significantly determined by the procurement of A-items as well as construction and installation services. Beyond mandate purchasing, partner companies have significant additional procurement volume, e.g. in case they operate their own power plants. In addition, many affiliates are providing purchasing services for other municipal companies, such as waste disposal or transport companies.

In total, Thüga alone publishes about 400 Europe-wide tenders per year. Between 20 and 50 suppliers participate in requests for services and an average of 10 companies in requests for materials. In the past they received the tender documents as Excel files, via email, fax or by mail delivery. The disadvantage in this “manual practice”: “We never knew whether the recipient had received the documents, whether he had taken a look at them and whether he would participate in the tender”, says Ralf Winter. Since Thüga is using myFUTURA, the nine Thüga buyers automatically receive status reports on the state of affairs.

Efficient tendering process

Even more problematic was the evaluation of the tenders. To merge around 30 offers with 500 items into one price comparison list meant considerable manual effort. “Instead of obtaining and preparing information laboriously by hand, we now invest our time in a sound evaluation, without the potential for errors” says Markus Anthofer, the project manager responsible for the implementation of the myFUTURA application.

One year after introducing myFutura, Thüga is already handling a third of all calls for tender via myFUTURA. In three years at the latest it should be 100 percent. The reason: many valid frame contracts with contract periods of two to three years will then be due for renewal. The experience to date reassures the Thüga buyers in their decision for myFutura. “The entire bidding process has become so much faster, at a higher quality”, says Ralf Winter. Today, the first price comparison list is available right after the end of the bidding period and the merging of offers is now more comfortable. The already existing and standardized SAP integration was a an additional argument in favor of myFUTURA just as the flexibility of the file formats – vendors can submit their offer in GAEB or Excel format.