In this video, discover how Raindrop Systems transforms sourcing with AI-native sourcing events that streamline RFx creation, automate supplier engagement, and deliver faster, more confident award decisions. From guided event setup and bid comparisons to real-time analytics and compliant workflows, Raindrop gives procurement teams the tools to drive better value, stronger competition, and clearer visibility across every sourcing initiative.
Video Transcript
Let’s take a look at a supplies sourcing event. I have a list of all my sourcing events, and then I can click into the sourcing event itself.
Raindrop uses a five-step process. Step one is drafting the event. Step two is RSVP, so your bidders can come in. You’ll see a tooltip here — we can send automatic reminders if you want them set up. Here’s the Q&A section, which shows when we’re expecting to receive questions, when responses are due back, and when you plan on closing the project.
Your internal stakeholders can be listed right here. It’s super simple to add them — just click the pencil icon. This is the email that will actually be received by your bidders, and you can type as much detail as you want.
Any qualification scorecard you choose to use can be added. Let’s take a look at the qualification scorecard we decided to include for this event. I have four sections: section one, section two, section three for vendor management, and section four for account management.
Questions can be yes or no, free-form text, one through five, or yes-no-negative where “no” is the preferred response. These are entirely configurable. You’ll see here that I’m on version 14. You can also clone scorecards to instantly create templates, which makes things much easier going forward.
Once you draft your event and add your lots, I have lot number one and lot number two. I can load these lots using a spreadsheet, or I can do it directly in Raindrop — that’s up to me.
Everything in a Raindrop sourcing event happens on this one page. The days of going from page to page to page and losing information when you hit backspace are over. Everything happens in these five steps on a single page.
If I send this out to providers, I can see who’s received it. I can see that they’ve signed my non-disclosure agreement and terms and conditions digitally. I can see who has responded that they want to bid and who has not. I can see who bid on lot number one, lot number two, or neither.
Because we believe strongly in evidence-based sourcing, I can also see when suppliers were invited and when they viewed the event.
If I want to add a new business, it’s very simple — just add another supplier and off they go.
The qualification scorecards will come back from your bidders — bidder one, bidder two, bidder three, bidder four — and you can see their scores at the bottom. This is the qualitative component of the questions you sent out in your questionnaire.
For announcements, I could send something like, “Sharpen your pencils — bids are due at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow,” and blast that out to everyone.
We can also receive questions from bidders. For example, “Can we extend by 30 minutes?” I can respond “No, sorry, we cannot,” and choose whether that response is public for all bidders to see or private as a one-on-one response.
Responses come back from your providers, including any documents you asked for. They can resubmit documents, and if I approve them, I simply give a thumbs-up.
Pricing then comes back in. Lot number one had 1,000 line items in the bill of materials. Lot number two had 20 line items. I can see the highest and lowest pricing from each bidder, whether they bid on 100% of the line items, and the lowest price overall.
Raindrop also stacks all of the lowest pricing and displays it in the low-bids column. This allows you to understand the floor opportunity for the entire inventory of goods.
We also support award scenarios, which is where expressive bidding AI comes into play. This provides feedback to bidders, telling them their price is high by a certain percentage — whether that’s 1%, 5%, 10%, or more — either at the line-item level or across the entire lot.
I can tell a bidder they’re high on one product or high across the entire lot.
Once the system scattergrams all of the pricing I’ve asked it to optimize — whether by price or coverage — I can look at different scenarios. Maybe with two suppliers I can cover 100% of the inventory but spend $781,000. Or maybe I’m willing to use more suppliers to save more money.
Once I save, the system allocates the awards and shows how much spend each supplier receives. In this scenario, I now have $566,000 across my 1,000-line-item bill of materials.
For the second bill of materials, I can see the same information, including savings versus average, savings versus the first quote, or savings versus an incumbent supplier. I can also construct different baselines or view total average savings across all lots.
I can also review bid history. Evidence-based sourcing is critical. In this case, I can see multiple bidders and multiple bids over time — bid one, bid two, bid three, and so on — showing how pricing moved from higher values down to the final amounts across the bill of materials.
This shows how pricing evolved, line item by line item, over time.
Evidence-based sourcing and expressive bidding work together to provide guidance to bidders, telling them when they’re high on price and by how much, helping create cost compression and drive savings.
Internal stakeholders can also complete evaluations, rating suppliers one out of five, five out of five, or however you configure it. The system averages those scores so you can make decisions based on stakeholder feedback.
Finally, we close out the sourcing event. I can send different award messages to winners and non-winners, email them directly, submit the awards for approval, or summarize the event with AI.
And there you have it — Raindrop sourcing events.
