Purchasing roles are evolving from traditional commodities procurement to also managing the sourcing of services, such as construction bidding for real estate, development and facilities maintenance efforts.

Within the last year, many of the world's biggest brands have followed this trend, including some of North America's largest big and small box retailers as well as the nation's largest and most well known retail financial institutions. Sourcing departments for many other organizations have also met the challenge of adding construction bidding to their list of responsibilities, some more effectively than others.

There seems to be two rather diverse approaches in this transition; either use current sourcing tools to approximate the construction bidding work flow, or add products that are more suited to the uniqueness of construction services procurement.

Read more about how strategic sourcing is coping with services procurement at CIO.com magazine: 

http://advice.cio.com/totalbid_ceo/is_strategic_sourcing_ready_for_construction_bidding

Learn if strategic sourcing is ready for construction bidding at CFO.com magazine: 

http://www.cfo.com/whitepapers/index.cfm/displaywhitepaper/14451638