The relationship between buyers and suppliers in procurement industry has always been tumultuous at best. There is a lack of realization among both parties concerning their need for each other. For a procurement environment to move forward in a proactive and strategic manner, buyers and suppliers need to collaborate with each other. But oftentimes, an important idea, such as the one above, gets lost in translation when shifting from its concept stage to real-world execution. Enters VORTAL, where both buyers and suppliers take part in an efficient, open and competitive bid process, thereby bringing-in opportunities for everyone to creatively expand their businesses.
A global leader in offering eSourcing and eProcurement solutions, VORTAL possesses a cloud eMarketplace, wherein thousands of public and private buyers are connected, with an international community of qualified suppliers to make everyday business.
Supporting Customers at a Global Scale
Formed in 2000, VORTAL has grown in stature to support customers globally with offices in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, UK, Mexico, and Colombia – serving large multinational corporations, and administrative organizations both big and small, including municipalities, governments, national central procurement bodies, etc. In addition to these, the company caters its support to a vast number of diversified SMEs as well. VORTAL’s references include Health Ministry of Portugal, AENA – Aeropuertos de España, Metro de Madrid, Mota Engil, Colombia Compra Eficiente, City of Vienna, Siemens, Austrian Post, and Bunge. The company is even rated regularly by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Suites and is mentioned by Forrester and Spend Matters as a top market player.
The Beginning of Something Big
VORTAL’s journey couldn’t have started any better, as it managed to get one of the most important marketplaces during its foundling years. Back then, almost 70% of the largest construction companies in Portugal used its platform.
Soon, VORTAL entered the public sector, becoming the platform of choice with the highest number of public tenders launched and electronic proposals submitted. It wasn’t much later when the company started working with partners across Europe and Latin America, thereby becoming the most global eProcurement Solution provider.
A Seasoned Leader Who Paved the Way for Success
Rui Dias-Ferreira, Founder, and CEO of VORTAL is the visionary who has led the company to what it is known as today. Prior to founding VORTAL, Rui served 12 years as an Associate Partner at Accenture; managing Supply Chain projects in the Engineering and Construction sector. At Accenture, he worked on a wide-range of projects involving medium-sized and large companies in Portugal, UK, Spain, and Italy.
A regular guest speaker at seminars and conferences, Rui holds a degree in Engineering and has a post-graduate diploma in Production Management from APICS – The Educational Society for Resource Management. He has also completed an Advanced Managing Program from IESE, Universidad of Navarra.
Rui also boasts an impressive profile in the public sphere with his involvement in the development of entrepreneurship as a mentor of several start-ups at Startup Lisboa and a promoter of the Junior Achievement and is extensively involved with social initiatives like working for the homeless.
It is also worth-mentioning that Rui is a sportsman and sailor, competing regularly in small catamarans and is a former Portuguese national champion in Hobie Cast 16.
Rising above the Imminent Industry Changes
According to the CEO, “Procurement platforms will be much more dependent on supplier’s communities than before. This means that users are increasingly looking for dynamic solutions to discover and qualify suppliers that avoid searching the web for potential suppliers without references or credentials. Standalone solutions where a buyer is closed in a silo with the suppliers they are used to working with for years will lose perspective of the market competitiveness and will become less competitive in the medium term.”
The ability to aggregate thousands of opportunities with a plethora of suppliers, possessing a network of partners fully-trained to implement the company’s services and by aligning both public and private procurement in one single multitenant infrastructure, VORTAL is already leading this 2nd wave of eSourcing solutions.
Extending their Solutions in the Procurement Industry
VORTAL was primarily founded to build and operate an eMarketplace for the Engineering and Construction industry. Later, the company expanded its solutions portfolio to extend coverage to other industries like health, public administration and corporate. Eventually, VORTAL became a specialized eSourcing provider in project procurement, wherein a significant amount of resources required regular discovery, qualification, and negotiation with new suppliers.
The company realizes that an effective Procurement Solution is one that offers highly tangible benefits. Prompting it to develop several instruments that demonstrate those benefits, including savings to the buyer side – buy better, and more business opportunities to the supply side – sell more. It provides an easy-to-use platform where suppliers are registered; not because VORTAL mandated by its clients, rather it has services specially designed for them and intelligence data that makes it more competitive.
For VORTAL, management of B2B communities over procurement technologies for the private and public sectors are its DNA.
Delivering a Suite of Services for both Buyers and Suppliers
What distinguishes VORTAL from its contemporaries are a highly configurable eSourcing platform and a two-sided value proposition with a suite of services for both buyers and suppliers. The solutions offered by the company, delivered in a SaaS model, are focused on supporting the following:-
- eSourcing Suite – Tactical and Strategic Sourcing from Private Companies and Contracting Authorities from the Public Sector.
- eCommerce Suite – Pre-sales, eMarketing, Market and Business Intelligence and Productivity Tools for Suppliers.
- Suppliers Network – Identifying the right suppliers to deal with; based on classification of products and services, rating and reputation concepts
- eMarketplace – eMarketplace operations, linking buyers and suppliers, and generating market and business intelligence data in order to increase competition and market awareness.
- Mobile – Mobility on access
e-Procurement Solutions that Guarantees Results
VORTAL offers an eProcurement solution with an easy to configure and robust set of digital processes in place that guarantees optimal results. Rui further expands its advantages by mentioning, “It helps users save money, streamline public spending, and shape economic activity without undermining any existing or planned services offered. A full range of services are in place to ensure that users can integrate the platform with any of their existing ERP. Communications, database encryption and time-stamping are in place to ensure a great level of security and full traceability of transactions.”
For both Buyers and Suppliers, VORTAL brings-forward the following unrivaled advantages in their ways of doing business:-
Buyer Value – VORTAL’s solutions ensure more transparency and less risk for the buyers. It helps in achieving savings up to 20% due to more competition; reduce costs by 40% in searching and qualifying suppliers and save up to 60% in time analyzing and comparing proposals. Add to that, VORTAL also improves buyer’s visibility over the emerging innovations in the market, manages the Indirect Spending and Tactical Sourcing efficiently and enables buyers to make better decisions based on more market information.
Supplier Value – VORTAL’s solutions for suppliers give them access to more business opportunities matching capabilities, improves knowledge about the market and competition and strengthens relationships with current customers. In addition to these, suppliers get higher visibility over decision-makers and it provides a cost-effective lead generation when compared with traditional processes.
Future of Continual Innovation and Expansion
VORTAL has been growing at two-digit levels for several consecutive years and will continue to develop the most innovative of services for buyers and suppliers, both in the public and private sectors. The company will also be leading the interoperability movement and will position itself as one of the most complete providers of services to suppliers.
VORTAL aims to reinforce its cooperation with integrations and consulting partners, to be able to deliver new services and innovative solutions to deal with corporate and public sector spending.
