The sourcing week
A job needs materials you do not buy every week. Someone looks through old emails for suppliers you used before, finds a few more online, and writes the same request five times. Two reply the same day, one replies with a PDF that quotes different units, one asks a question, and one never replies.
Then someone builds a spreadsheet to compare them, converting pack sizes, adding delivery charges, checking lead times. By the time it is done, one of the prices has expired.
Multiply that by every non-routine purchase and it is a good part of someone's job, done mostly by copy and paste.
Why it stays manual
Routine repeat orders are often automated already, through a supplier portal or a reorder in your stock system. Sourcing is different, because each request is a bit different and each supplier answers in their own way.
That variety used to make it hard to automate. The requests could be templated, but the replies could not be read by a simple rule, so a person had to do it. That is the part modern document extraction changes.
There is also a knowledge problem. Your list of suppliers, who is reliable, who is quick, who quoted what last time, usually lives in one buyer's inbox and memory rather than anywhere searchable.
What manual sourcing costs
- Buyer time spent writing emails and retyping prices rather than negotiating.
- Fewer suppliers asked, because asking is effort, so you see fewer options.
- Comparison mistakes from different units, VAT treatment or delivery terms.
- Jobs delayed while quotes are chased.
- Supplier history lost when the buyer who held it moves on.
How SpiderHunts automates the sourcing loop
- Build a supplier directory from your past emails, purchase orders and accounts data, with categories, contacts and past performance.
- Create a request screen: the buyer enters what is needed, quantity, delivery location and date, and picks suppliers from the directory by category.
- Send each supplier a consistent request by email or a simple link to a response form, with a deadline.
- Monitor the replies. Whether they answer in the form, in the email body or in a PDF attachment, an AI extraction step reads price, units, lead time, delivery charge and validity into a common structure.
- Validate what was extracted: convert units, flag missing information, and highlight anything unusual, such as a price far from previous quotes.
- Chase non-responders automatically before the deadline.
- Show the buyer a side-by-side comparison on a like-for-like basis, with the original documents one click away.
- When the buyer chooses, raise the purchase order in your accounts or purchasing system, such as Xero or QuickBooks, through its API.
| Step | Automated | Stays with your buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Finding suppliers to ask | Suggested from history and category | Adding or removing names |
| Sending requests | Yes | Approving the specification |
| Reading replies | Yes, with checks | Resolving flagged items |
| Comparing | Yes | Weighing quality and relationship |
| Choosing | No | Yes, always |
A sourcing process that runs itself
Your buyer spends time on judgement: which supplier is right, what to negotiate, when to push back. Requests go to more suppliers because asking costs nothing extra. Comparisons are like for like, and every quote is stored and searchable, so next time you know what you paid and who delivered.
The supplier knowledge that used to live in one inbox becomes a shared asset that survives holidays and staff changes.
Over time the stored quotes become useful in their own right. You can see how a supplier's prices have moved, who consistently quotes the shortest lead times, and who tends to reply late. That is information buyers used to carry around in their heads, if at all, and it makes the next negotiation a better-informed one.
We keep the human part deliberately visible. The system never picks a supplier or sends an order on its own. It does the reading, retyping and chasing, which are the parts nobody enjoys, and leaves the decision where it belongs.
Does your sourcing look like this?
- Quote requests are written individually by email.
- Supplier replies are retyped into a spreadsheet to compare them.
- You usually ask the same two or three suppliers because asking more is effort.
- Past quotes and prices are hard to find.
- Jobs wait on quotes being chased.