Management of preferred suppliers

A preferred supplier is one with whom you have already worked with previously, it is very likely that you have already set up with them, agreements or reference contracts. As such, it is likely that during your Onboarding experience you have already invited a list of suppliers to join you at LittleBig, as a preferred supplier (otherwise, you can contact your Customer Success Manager at any other point to add them). This article explains how you, as a Company Administrator, can set up lists of preferred suppliers and how they can then be used by Operationals.

Within this article

• Set up a list of preferred suppliers 
• Use the lists of preferred suppliers

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Set up a list of preferred suppliers 

Company Administrators are the only ones able to set up lists of preferred suppliers, linking them to specific entities, to enable collaborators to use them when creating new Requests for Proposals.

One way to set up these preferred suppliers lists is, for example, to categorize your suppliers by rank, activity industry, location, etc. To create a list:

1. Go to the Entities tab and click on Preferred supplier management
2. Within the Specific settings page of the parent entity that will come up, go to the section Preferred suppliers and click on New preferred suppliers list
3. In the form that will appear, please fill in the following fields:
   • Name of the list: choose a distinctive name for your list 
   • Preferred suppliers: select all the firms you wish to add to your list of preferred suppliers
   • List of entities: select all the entities to which you wish to give access, to the list of preferred suppliers
4. Click on Validate

Once your list has been validated, you will be able to find it in the Entities tab, then Preferred supplier management. And from this page, you will also be able to edit your lists by: 

• Adding suppliers/entities
• Removing suppliers/entities

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Use the lists of preferred suppliers

Your operational staff, assigned to the entities linked to these lists, will be able to access them upon initiating the creation of a new Request for Proposals, specifically on the last step of the form (Publication).

They will be able to select the lists to which they want to send the RFP, and modify the components of the lists if needed, by deselecting the suppliers to whom they do not wish to send the RFP. 

Upon publishing the RFP, only the selected suppliers will be able to view and respond to it.

If a supplier is not found within a list attached to an entity, and they win the RFP, the service will be intermediated by LittleBig Connection.