Become a supplier? It's easy with DIG E-Procurement!
The DIG catalogue platform is designed to efficiently link supplier and customer organisations and to deepen these economic relationships. In doing so, it is important to respond to suppliers of different sizes: With two catalogue variants (OCI and Content) as well as with the support of different file formats and up to three transmission channels, DIG provides the technical basis for high practical suitability. The DIG Supplier Management also provides personal support for onboarding.
What advantages do I have as a supplier? By onboarding an e-procurement platform, suppliers are permanently listed with their customers, orders are placed automatically and clearly structured. The order data can be transferred directly into the target system. At the same time, DIG offers several invoice receipt channels, the automated processing of the data accelerates the invoice process. In addition, the technical connection as an exclusive channel deepens the ongoing business relationship, making the exchange of suppliers more difficult. As a rule, new company locations also use the same e-procurement system, which can lead to an expansion of business. Likewise, new participants in the DIG e-procurement platform represent potential new customers for already integrated suppliers, as their offer can be used immediately. In fact, this availability is an important decision criterion in the implementation phase.
OCI or content catalogue - what is the difference?
The initial question is the type of catalogue required. This is agreed in advance during contract and product range negotiations between customers and suppliers (see also our diagram below). With an OCI connection, the supplier's shop system is used to access the catalog data via the Internet using a standardized interface (open catalog interface). With this interface, which is also called a punchout, the buyer is forwarded to the vendor's shop. There he or she compiles his or her shopping basket, which is then imported into the vendor's own e-procurement system. This is where the ordering process is processed. Depending on the OCI version, there are different options - background search from OCI 4.0 on is particularly important in practice (more on this below).
The alternative to OCI is the content catalog. Here, all article data is physically transferred to the platform and used for e-procurement. This can be done in two ways: The article data can be exported directly from the ERP system into the standardized catalog data exchange format BMEcat (which is based on XML technology) and transferred to the platform with the DIG.catman tool. You can find more about the file format at www.bmecat.de.
As an alternative, DIG offers an Excel-like template (DIG Excel Template) in the second version, in which all article data including the corresponding image descriptions are entered. These are also imported into the system via DIG.catman (see below for details). The advantage for customers and suppliers is that all agreements such as delivery times, prices etc. are clearly defined. Any necessary adjustments are made using the DIG.catman tool (see below for details).
Here the DIG.catman can be downloaded free of charge - more information about the tool can be found in the user manual!
How do search modes and weightings improve the findability of my offer?
Based on the Elastic Search technology (which is also used by Google, among others), the DIG e-procurement platform gives suppliers the opportunity to optimize products and services for the search. For this purpose, the four available search modes (article number, description, normal and full text) offer a variety of weighting options. Thus, every supplier has the opportunity to optimally position his goods in the search results of potential customers. We will be happy to send you detailed instructions on request by e-mail or contact form!
How can a catalog be modified?
As described above, the upload of the new catalogue with changed data is done via DIG.catman. The system then compares it with the existing catalogue - changes such as new articles and prices are transmitted to the supplier in the form of a clear delta report in Excel format. After this final check, the customer receives the deltareport for approval. As soon as this has been done, the new catalogue is activated, depending on the time setting provided for this purpose.
Which channels are available for invoice transmission?
DIG basically provides three input channels. Invoice data can be entered via EDI, via e-mail and PDF or via XML. The customer of the e-procurement platform decides which of these channels are actually open.
What is the classification standard eCl@ss?
Since the year 2000 eCl@ss has established itself as a classification standard in trade, industry, services etc. To put it simply, a large part of the traded goods and services is classified across all sectors according to a numbering system in order to achieve detailed identification. This enables purchasers to assign purchases to the correct account by assigning a fixed merchandise category and G/L account. For this reason, more and more companies require their suppliers to use eCl@ss - more information on the possible applications and advantages of eCl@ss in the entire value-added chain can be found at http://www.eclass.de/eclasscontent/standard/overview.html.de.
Files
catman-user-manual.pdf (543.4 KB)
