When Stephan Kübler, Network Director of the freight network Eurodis, headquartered in Weinheim, thinks about tendering processes, the subject no longer causes him sleepless nights. Although the 16 Eurodis network partners, who are positioned throughout Europe, carry out well over a hundred international transports per day and have to find suitable service providers for this and for new connections, this is not an area of responsibility that causes stress, despite the considerable sum involved. "It wasn't that long ago that things were different," reports Kübler. Previously, classic Excel spreadsheets were used for these processes - and lots of them. "That was a huge amount of work," he recalls. "And this effort tied up resources. In view of our strong growth, we also needed a more efficient solution."

Eurodis is a network for international transportation with uniform quality standards, end-to-end shipment tracking and country-specific additional services that operates in 38 European countries. Founded in 1993, the cooperation of leading national logistics service providers specializes in transporting and delivering parcels and pallets in a network. The network is managed centrally from Weinheim. Members include companies such as Bonafide (Switzerland), Ciblex (France), Österreichische Post (Austria), PostNL (Netherlands), Redur (Spain/Portugal), SDA (Italy) and trans-o-flex (Germany). In 2022, Eurodis members employed 50,000 people, operated 23,000 vehicles, transported around 982 million consignments and generated a turnover of 5.5 billion euros.

Coordination from the Eurodis head office

The Eurodis head office in Weinheim does not carry out its own transportation. This is done exclusively by the network partners. However, the head office coordinates, organizes and plans, provides the central IT and defines fixed standards for quality assurance for all partners. Quality - this criterion should also apply to tenders. A project team from network planning got together at the time, scrutinized processes and looked for solutions. "A lean tool that is easy to use - that was our vision," says Kübler. After an intensive phase of research, Eurodis opted for the Tender logistics marketplace from Cargoclix. It is available to all users in the cloud as software as a service.

One of the reasons for the decision was the fact that with tenders, invoicing is based on the award and there are no costs for provision. Gradually, more and more transports were put out to tender via Tender, and since 2020 all of them. "The network partners responded very positively to the introduction of Tender and the central coordination of tenders; nobody felt left out," continues the Network Director, reporting on the initial period of use: "It quickly became clear that Tender was a great support. Thanks to its Europe-wide reach, we were now able to find transport partners that we had not previously reached with our tenders," he adds.

Public or closed invitation to tender

One of the most important functions of the tool for Eurodis is the ability to invite already known service providers to tenders, but at the same time to think outside the box: Who is a new company? Who is a potential transport service provider? The network uses the platform's various query options to obtain information about the different carriers: Who offers which service? And who quotes what price for which service? Clients can decide whether a tender should be carried out publicly or in a closed group of participants. Cargoclix has a broad network in the transport and logistics sector, which can be reached via a public tender. A closed tender only reaches the service providers selected by the shipper. Non-invited service providers do not see a closed tender.

However, when it comes to selecting a service provider, price is only one criterion that is taken into account in the decision-making process. "It alone is not decisive," explains Kübler. "The quality on offer is at least as important." In one of the most recent tenders, there was feedback from more than 300 carriers. All of them offered to carry out the required transports. Around 50 of them were shortlisted and examined more closely. In order to get an idea of their performance, test transports are also repeatedly carried out to see whether the offer is right.

Tools such as the rating system, which shows how other clients rate a particular service provider, help with the selection process. A blacklist effectively excludes unsuitable freight forwarders and carriers from your own tenders. Before the actual invitation to tender, it is possible to first carry out a pre-qualification. In an independent round, invited service providers fill out a questionnaire prepared by the shipper. In this way, a larger group of service providers can be specifically checked for suitability for the tendering project. After prequalification, the shipper decides which service providers should be admitted to bid.

Transport software: Tools for the best bid

After the bid has been submitted, Tender supports the effective evaluation of the tender results. The system makes it easy to create scenarios with different assumptions and then compare them with each other. Tender also supports the client in finding the best price under the given restrictions. The "Best Price" option calculates the best price under the framework conditions defined by the shipper.

Award decision and conclusion of the contract

The decision to award the contract is made by the shipper. As a rule, the decision is preceded by personal discussions between the shipper and the service provider. In most cases, the conclusion of the contract is documented by both parties signing the contract on which the shipper has based its decision. When Stephan Kübler reviews the past few years since the introduction of Tender, he comes to a very clear conclusion: "We can absolutely recommend the platform." This is due not only to the large number of carriers that can be accessed via the platform, but also to the possibility of making a preselection based on certain criteria as part of a tender. "Once this preselection has been made, we can take a closer look at the individual providers," he says. "This makes the selection process simple and clear." Eurodis was also impressed by Cargoclix's high level of user-friendliness and good support. "The employees always dealt with everything quickly, even with individual issues," reports Kübler. "No matter what consulting service was required, the customer service was always a reliable support."