System and method for managing supplier intelligence

• US 8,103,534 B2
• Filed: 10/23/2002
• Issued: 01/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ent Services Development Corporation LP (DXC Technology Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Kruk, Jeffrey M., Quigney, Peter P., Kasravi, Kasra
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Dean T
• Application Number:
  US10/279,188
• Publication Number:
  US 20030120504A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,380 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1.1, 705/7.22, 705/7.23, 705/7.25, 705/7.36, 705/7.37
• US Class Current: 705/7.22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2216/03 Data mining
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/237 Lexical tools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/247 Thesauruses; Synonyms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06313 Resource planning in a project environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06395 Quality analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation

Abstract

A method of managing supplier intelligence is provided. The method includes collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources. The procurement data includes information regarding a plurality of business divisions of a business entity. The method further includes generating spend formulas for each business division for determining spending associated with each business division. The method further includes generating a set of supplier intelligence business rules that interrelate at least one spend formula associated with a first one of the business divisions with at least one spend formula associated with a second one of the business divisions. The method further includes automatically analyzing a portion of the procurement data based on the supplier intelligence business rules to determine the financial effects of a decision made by the first business division on the second business division. The method further includes automatically generating a visual output indicating the results of the analysis.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of managing supplier intelligence, comprising:

collecting procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources, the procurement data including information regarding a plurality of business divisions of a business entity;

for each business division, generating a set of spend formulas for determining spending associated with that business division;

generating a set of supplier intelligence business rules based on a variety of business parameters, each supplier intelligence business rule interrelating at least one spend formula associated with a first one of the business divisions with at least one spend formula associated with a second one of the business divisions;

performing, using a computer system, an automatic analysis of at least a portion of the procurement data based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the financial effects of a decision made by the first business division on the second business division; and

automatically generating a visual output indicating the results of the automatic analysis of the at least a portion of the procurement data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the procurement data includes information automatically extracted from a plurality of electronic contracts based on a set of linguistic rules.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing a plurality of electronic contracts including unstructured textual data;

determining one or more linguistic patterns associated with a business parameter;

generating linguistic rules based on the one or more linguistic patterns; and

using text mining tools to automatically extract information regarding the business parameter from the unstructured textual data using one or more of the linguistic rules; and

wherein collecting procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources includes receiving at least a portion of the automatically extracted information.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatic analysis includes analyzing particular procurement information regarding the first business division and the second business division based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the automatic analysis includes determining a financial business opportunity based on the determined effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division; and

the automatically generated visual output illustrates a financial business opportunity.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatic analysis includes:

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process; and

determining the financial effects of particular procurement decisions of one or more of the plurality of business divisions on the total cost.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatic analysis includes:

performing one or more simulations, each simulation including;

selecting a set of hypothetical procurement decisions regarding the procurement process; and

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process based on the set of hypothetical procurement decisions selected for that simulation; and

wherein the automatically generated visual output illustrates the effect of particular procurement decisions on the total cost associated with the procurement process.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically generated visual output comprises a three-dimensional visualization.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically generated visual output comprises a plurality of visualizations which may be navigated through using automated navigation tools.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources comprises:

collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources;

periodically receiving additional procurement data from one or more of the plurality of data sources; and

updating the procurement data based on the additional procurement data.

11. Software for managing supplier intelligence, the software being embodied in a non-transitory computer-readable media and when executed by one or more processing units operable to:

collect procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources, the procurement data including information regarding a plurality of business divisions of a business entity;

for each business division, generate a set of spend formulas for determining spending associated with that business division;

generate a set of supplier intelligence business rules based on a variety of business parameters, each supplier intelligence business rule interrelating at least one spend formula associated with a first one of the business divisions with at least one spend formula associated with a second one of the business divisions; and

perform an analysis of at least a portion of the procurement data based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the financial effects of a decision made by the first business division on the second business division;

generate a visual output indicating the results of the analysis of the at least a portion of the procurement data.

12. The software of claim 11, wherein the procurement data includes information automatically extracted from a plurality of electronic contracts based on a set of linguistic rules.

13. The software of claim 11, further operable to:

store a plurality of electronic contracts include unstructured textual data;

access linguistic rules generated based on one or more linguistic patterns associated with a business parameter; and

using text mining tools to extract information regarding the business parameter from the unstructured textual data using one or more of the linguistic rules; and

wherein collecting procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources includes receiving at least a portion of the automatically extracted information.

14. The software of claim 11, wherein the analysis includes analyzing particular procurement information regarding the first business division and the second business division based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division.

15. The software of claim 14, wherein:

the analysis includes determining a financial business opportunity based on the determined effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division; and

the visual output illustrates a financial business opportunity.

16. The software of claim 11, wherein the analysis includes:

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process; and

determining the financial effects of particular procurement decisions of one or more of the plurality of business divisions on the total cost.

17. The software of claim 11, wherein the analysis includes:

performing one or more simulations, each simulation including;

selecting a set of hypothetical procurement decisions regarding the procurement process; and

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process based on the set of hypothetical procurement decisions selected for that simulation; and

wherein the visual output illustrates the effect of particular procurement decisions on the total cost associated with the procurement process.

18. The software of claim 11, wherein collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources comprises:

collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources;

periodically receiving additional procurement data from one or more of the plurality of data sources; and

updating the procurement data based on the additional procurement data.

19. A system for managing supplier intelligence, comprising:

a data warehouse operable to collect procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources, the procurement data including information regarding a plurality of business divisions of a business entity;

a supplier intelligence business rules database operable to store a set of supplier intelligence business rules, each supplier intelligence business rule generated based on a variety of business parameters and interrelating at least one spend formula associated with a first one of the business divisions with at least one spend formula associated with a second one of the business divisions; and

one or more processing units operable to execute;

an analysis module operable to perform an analysis of at least a portion of the procurement data based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the financial effects of a decision made by the first business division on the second business division; and

a data visualization module operable to generate a visual output indicating the results of the analysis.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the procurement data includes information automatically extracted from a plurality of electronic contracts based on a set of linguistic rules.

21. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

a contracts database operable to store a plurality of electronic contracts include unstructured textual data;

a linguistic rule database operable to store linguistic rules generated based on one or more linguistic patterns associated with a business parameter;

a text mining module comprising text mining tools operable to automatically extract information regarding the business parameter from the unstructured textual data using one or more of the linguistic rules; and

wherein collecting procurement data regarding a procurement process from a plurality of data sources includes receiving at least a portion of the automatically extracted information.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the analysis includes analyzing particular procurement information regarding the first business division and the second business division based on one or more of the set of supplier intelligence business rules to determine the effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein:

the analysis includes determining a financial business opportunity based on the determined effect of particular procurement decisions of the first business division on the second business division; and

the visual output illustrates a financial business opportunity.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the analysis includes:

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process; and

determining the financial effects of particular procurement decisions of one or more of the plurality of business divisions on the total cost.

25. The system of claim 19, wherein the analysis includes:

performing one or more simulations, each simulation including;

selecting a set of hypothetical procurement decisions regarding the procurement process; and

determining a total cost associated with the procurement process based on the set of hypothetical procurement decisions selected for that simulation; and

wherein the visual output illustrates the effect of particular procurement decisions on the total cost associated with the procurement process.

26. The system of claim 19, wherein the data warehouse is operable to collect procurement data from a plurality of data sources by:

collecting procurement data from a plurality of data sources;

periodically receiving additional procurement data from one or more of the plurality of data sources; and

updating the collected procurement data based on the additional procurement data.