Network reverse auction and spending analysis methods
First Claim
1. A method of updating a database of commodity information including multiple predefined commodity designations representing multiple predefined commodities and an estimated market price stored in association with one or more of the commodity designations, comprising:
- providing an online reverse auction environment accessible via a computer network;
receiving a request for proposals (RFP) from a customer at the online reverse auction environment, the RFP including a request for bids on at least a specified one of the commodities;
soliciting multiple potential vendors to submit proposals responsive to the RFP in the online reverse auction environment;
receiving one or more vendor proposals in the online reverse auction environment, at least one of the vendor proposals being responsive to the RFP and including a proposed price for the specified commodity;
extracting the proposed price from each of the responsive vendor proposals;
comparing the proposed price to the estimated market price of the specified commodity; and
updating the database with the proposed price so that the estimated market price more accurately approximates an actual market price.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computer-implemented telecommunications spending analysis system extracts telecommunications traffic detail data from billing statements provided by telecommunications carriers and converts the traffic detail data to a generic data format for aggregation in a uniform customer traffic history database. The spending analysis system compares billed rates against estimated market prices stored in a best of class (BOC) database and notifies the user of possible cost savings attainable in a renegotiated contract. A web-based RFP system facilitates preparation of a request for proposals (RFP) and solicitation of vendors to bid on the RFP in an online reverse auction environment, both for telecommunications services and other commodities. The RFP system may access the uniform customer traffic history database to facilitate preparation of a traffic forecast of the RFP. Upon completion of an RFP auction, the RFP system updates the estimated market prices of the BOC database based on the vendor bids.
87 Citations
71 Claims
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1. A method of updating a database of commodity information including multiple predefined commodity designations representing multiple predefined commodities and an estimated market price stored in association with one or more of the commodity designations, comprising:
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providing an online reverse auction environment accessible via a computer network;
receiving a request for proposals (RFP) from a customer at the online reverse auction environment, the RFP including a request for bids on at least a specified one of the commodities;
soliciting multiple potential vendors to submit proposals responsive to the RFP in the online reverse auction environment;
receiving one or more vendor proposals in the online reverse auction environment, at least one of the vendor proposals being responsive to the RFP and including a proposed price for the specified commodity;
extracting the proposed price from each of the responsive vendor proposals;
comparing the proposed price to the estimated market price of the specified commodity; and
updating the database with the proposed price so that the estimated market price more accurately approximates an actual market price. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of updating a database of commodity information including multiple predefined commodity designations representing multiple predefined commodities, an estimated market price stored in association with one or more of the commodity designations, and a nonprice market term stored in association with one or more of the commodity designations, the method comprising:
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providing an online reverse auction environment accessible via a computer network;
receiving a request for proposals (RFP) from a customer at the online reverse auction environment, the RFP including a request for bids and a desired nonprice term for at least a specified one of the commodities;
soliciting multiple potential vendors to submit proposals responsive to the RFP in the online reverse auction environment;
receiving one or more vendor proposals in the online reverse auction environment, at least one of the vendor proposals being responsive to the RFP and including a proposed price for the specified commodity and a proposed nonprice term;
extracting the proposed price and the proposed nonprice term from each of the responsive vendor proposals;
comparing the proposed price and the proposed nonprice term with the respective estimated market price and nonprice market term of the database corresponding to the specified commodity; and
updating the database with the proposed price so that the estimated market price more accurately approximates an actual market price. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59)
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16. A system for facilitating the purchase of telecommunications services, comprising:
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a best of class database including an estimated market price for at least one telecommunications service;
a customer traffic history database including traffic information describing a historical quantity of the telecommunications service used by a customer during a previous time period;
an RFP preparation module accessible by the customer via the Internet for preparation of a request for proposals (RFP) describing an anticipated quantity of the telecommunications service, the RFP preparation module being adapted to extract the historical quantity from the customer traffic history database for use in determining the anticipated quantity of the telecommunications service;
an online reverse auction environment, accessible by multiple potential vendors via the Internet, the potential vendors including one or more interested vendors, the online reverse auction environment adapted to display the RFP to the interested vendors and to receive bids on the RFP from the interested vendors; and
a bid analysis module in communication with the online reverse auction environment and the best of class database for analyzing the received bids.
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28. A system for facilitating the purchase of telecommunications services, comprising:
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a best of class database including an estimated market price for at least one telecommunications service;
a customer traffic history database including traffic information describing a historical quantity of the telecommunications service used by a customer during a previous time period;
an RFP preparation module accessible by the customer via the Internet for preparation of a request for proposals (RFP) describing an anticipated quantity of the telecommunications service, the RFP preparation module being adapted to extract the historical quantity from the customer traffic history database for use in determining the anticipated quantity of the telecommunications service;
an online reverse auction environment accessible by multiple potential vendors via the Internet, the potential vendors including one or more interested vendors, the online reverse auction environment adapted to present the RFP to the interested vendors and to receive bids on the RFP from the interested vendors;
a bid analysis module in communication with the online reverse auction environment and the best of class database for analyzing the received bids and generating a feedback in response to the received bids; and
a database updating module for updating the best of class database in response to the received bids so that the estimated market price more accurately approximates an actual market price.
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39. A system for reducing the cost of telecommunications services, comprising:
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a best of class database including multiple generic classes of telecommunications service and an estimated market price for one or more of the generic classes of telecommunications service;
a customer traffic history database including traffic information describing, a historical quantity of at least some of the generic classes of telecommunications service used by a customer during a previous time period;
a spending analysis software module for reading multiple telecommunications billing statements including traffic detail data, extracting the traffic detail data from the telecommunications billing statements, converting the traffic detail data to the generic classes of telecommunications service, and updating the historical quantity of the customer traffic history database with the converted traffic detail data;
an RFP preparation module accessible by the customer via the Internet for preparation of a request for proposals (RFP) describing an anticipated quantity of a specified one of the generic classes of telecommunications service, the RFP preparation module being adapted to extract the historical quantity from the customer traffic history database for use in determining the anticipated quantity of the specified generic class of telecommunications service;
an online reverse auction environment accessible by multiple potential vendors via the Internet, the potential vendors including one or more interested vendors, the online reverse auction environment adapted to present the RFP to the interested vendors and to receive bids on the RFP from the interested vendors;
a bid analysis module in communication with the online reverse auction environment and the best of class database for analyzing the received bids and generating a feedback in response to the received bids; and
a database updating module for updating the best of class database with at least one of the received bids so that the estimated market price more accurately approximates an actual market price.
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49. A computer-implemented method of analyzing telecommunications traffic, comprising:
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extracting traffic detail data from multiple billing statements, the billing statements being received from various telecommunications carriers, the traffic detail data of each billing statement describing at least one telecommunications traffic event;
converting the traffic detail data to a generic traffic format, the generic traffic format defining multiple generic classes of service;
storing the converted traffic detail data in a customer traffic history database; and
summarizing the converted traffic detail data.
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60. A computer-implemented telecommunications spending analysis system for analyzing multiple telecommunications billing statements received by a customer from various telecommunications carriers, each telecommunications billing statement including traffic detail data for multiple telecommunications traffic events, comprising:
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a set of computer-readable translation rules that relate the traffic detail data to multiple predefined generic classes of service;
a traffic genericizing module for converting the traffic detail data to a generic traffic detail format in accordance with the translation rules;
a customer traffic history database for storing the converted traffic detail data; and
a traffic analysis software module in communication with the customer traffic history database for analyzing the converted traffic detail data to thereby allow convenient summarizing, storage, and reporting of the traffic detail data. - View Dependent Claims (61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71)
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Specification