Quotes: an e-sourcing tool case study Embedding decision support in e-Sourcing tools: Quotes, a case study

In the everyday business world, the sourcing process of multiple goods and services usually involves complex negotiations that include discussion of product and service features. Currently, this is a high-cost process due to the scarce use of tools that streamline negotiations and assist purchasing managers’ and providers’ decision-making. With the advent of Internet-based technologies, it became feasible the idea of tools enabling low-cost, assisted, fluid, on-line dialogs between buyer enterprises and their providers located anywhere. This article presents Quotes, an iSOCO’s commercial application that, in addition to cover the whole sequence of sourcing tasks, incorporates decision support facilities based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques that successfully address highly challenging issues in automated negotiation within a single and coherent framework.