Introducing the Supplier Search Engine!
The Supplier Search Engine (SSE) is a free application based on Google’s custom search engine that searches the websites of your suppliers. Want to know which of your current legal providers might provide derivatives advice, or which of your existing IT technology providers profess to have some expertise in grid computing? Simply type “derivatives” or “grid computing” into your SSE and your relevant suppliers will appear. Because you also upload your spend to the SSE, you can see which suppliers you spend the most with.
How does it work?
To use the system, submit your vendor list and spend to Supplier Search Engine. Once submitted, we find the websites of your suppliers and create a custom Google search engine that searches only those websites. You will receive an email once this process is completed.
If you have 10,000 suppliers, you should receive the email within a few hours. Clicking the link in the email will take you to your SSE which contains only your suppliers.
Enter any search term and view the results. We display your spend with each supplier in a graphic next to the search results. The longer the bar, the more you spend with the supplier. In the image above, you can see the results of a search for “pharmaceutical”. Pfizer is ranked as most relevant to the term, but you can see that this company spends more with Johnson & Johnson.
You can even set up different search engines for different categories of suppliers! Click here to see how.
It’s that simple.
Legal Provider Search Engine contains the top 100 law firms globally. The Spend bar displays comparative annual revenue. After clicking the link, try searching for the term “intellectual property”.
Feedback welcome
We believe this is good for both buyers and sellers because buyers can see all of the services offered by their key suppliers and consider these suppliers when looking for additional products and services. This allows buyers to consolidate their supplier base and suppliers to expand the range of products and services they provide to their existing customers.
We completed this project over the course of a weekend using existing mash-up technology. We have received feedback from key procurement professionals globally over the past 10 days (Thanks to everyone who provided input). We implemented their recommended changes and we are keen to hear your feedback as well.
You can try out the SSE using sample data so you don’t even need to load in your data to check it out.
Please email feedback@suppliersearchengine.com.
