[Guest Blog] Lessons learned from my experience using Market Dojo eAuction software

Jon Brinsmead has been buying goods and services for clients for over 20 years,  working with the likes of Unilever and Transport for London whilst providing training in commercial management for the same period of time.

Jon shares his thoughts on his years of experience using Market Dojo to teach IT managers about deal making and eAuctions.

Running a reverse auction
As a seller or buyer – when you decide to run an eAuction for the first time a few things are worth thinking about and taking time over to get the best outcome. As a buyer it’s good to undertake the same preparations that the seller will do “ so you can get into the minds of your sellers.

• Preparation “ Like most things in life, it’s all about the preparation. You need to design your bid strategy ahead of executing it. Like DJ’s you need 2 decks to run an eAuction well.

Deck 1 – Your bid control form
This is where you put in your bid prices and set out your strategy for each round, based on what you plan to happen. Here you should work (in advance) through all of the different scenarios and strategies, planning on what could happen during the auction “ giving you the ability to adapt and react to what the other sellers are doing. I usually run this in Excel but whichever software you are most comfortable using is best.

Deck 2 – Your Market Dojo screen
This is where you will be putting in your selling prices and watching what is happening with the auction in real time.

• The technical side “ make sure your IT is working and solid, internet connections must be good and reliable and it’s no bad thing to ensure you are logged in ahead of time.
• Market Dojo has a sandbox feature where you can practice an auction ahead of using it in anger “ this is a really useful feature and worth taking any staff who are planning to be involved in auctions through. You may need to arrange for user IDs from Market Dojo to be able to use this.

If you’re interested in commercial training, contact Jon at [email protected]

Market Dojo helps procurement professionals negotiate better with our on-demand eSourcing tools. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch or register for free and play around with our software for yourself!