Spend Analysis and Product Coding

Coding can be a daunting prospect when it comes to e-procurement. Each supplier will have their own codes and their own way of describing the same goods.

This makes it difficult for a buyer to review all of their organisation’s procurement across a wide supplier base quickly and easily. The idea of e-procurement, though, is to make it less time consuming and tedious to create tenders that accurately describe the goods and services required.

This is where the @UK approach of using an independent set of codes, not linked to any supplier, but linked to standardised descriptions really works. All parties can refer to a particular product - say an office desk of particular size, materials and construction – and know what they are talking about.

This benefits both the buyers and the prospective suppliers who will receive the tender

As part of the @UK group, Coding International offers a widely-used independent coding system that compares goods and services down to individual item level.

With over a half a million products and services already coded, and expanding daily, the codes are compatible with and cross-referenced to other existing structures – such as UNSPSC and CPV. Any tendered items not on the database can be easily added.

For more information visit the Coding International website.