Review Opportunities: Interacting with Opportunities Follow

Review Opportunities is where you review and track all the savings opportunities recommended by LevaData, new and old. You can look for the most compelling savings opportunities, accept or reject them, automate these reviews with business rules, and then persist past review status so you can focus on new opportunities each time.

This article covers drilling into opportunity details to make your review sessions valuable, and then how to interact with these opportunities in the module to prioritize them to meet your business objectives.

Individual Records

At the individual record level, opportunities are calculated in the following way:

• Total Offered: Maximum of all opportunity types offered by LevaData.
• Accepted Opportunity: Maximum of any Accepted opportunity type.
• On Hold Opportunity: Maximum of any (On Hold - Accepted) when positive otherwise zero.
• Rejected: Maximum of any (Rejected - (Accepted + On Hold + Not Reviewed) when positive.
• Not Reviewed: Maximum of any (Not Reviewed - (Accepted + On Hold)) when positive.

Review Opportunities Table

Top Opportunities Presented

A user will see top opportunities by dollar amount by default, and opportunities are presented in descending order from largest to smallest dollar amount, but users can sort/filter any other column by clicking into it.

On an individual level, a user is looking for the best opportunity that is attainable to them. There may be a very large opportunity and when it is accepted, then it expires all inferior opportunities for the same part because of the choice in favor of that opportunity type.

There may also be a middle/lower opportunity for savings and accepting that in lieu of a very large opportunity may make more sense to the user because they know subjectively that only a specific vendor or identical part can match their production process - they may want to accept a slightly inferior savings with a fit that they know is a more realistic opportunity to achieve.

This then expires the opportunities inferior to that mid-range opportunity. The higher savings opportunities will remain in Not Reviewed status until they are reviewed and actioned.

Record Level Rules

The following rules apply at a record level:

1. Expiration Rule: If an opportunity is accepted then we expire any other opportunities on that record that are equal or lesser value.
2. Undo Rule: If an Accepted Opportunity is changed to any other state than accepted, we change any Expired Opportunities back to "Not Reviewed" that are larger in magnitude than the largest remaining accepted opportunity.

These rules exist because the goal is to try and find the maximum savings in part supply opportunities, whenever any superior opportunity is accepted, all equivalent inferior opportunities are rejected.

Multiple Opportunities for the Same Part

Often times the LevaData Platform will present multiple opportunities for the same part if it discovers potential savings against any of our Opportunity Types. Clicking into an opportunity you may see several options for these opportunity types in the opportunity detail page, like in this example below:

In this case, the user will want to pick the superior opportunity to realize the highest possible savings. When a user accepts a particular opportunity for a given record, both the remaining equal and inferior (lower) opportunities that are in the not reviewed state will be rejected.

We recommend that when evaluating equal magnitude opportunities for the same record, you accept whatever you consider as the highest leverage opportunity lever with your vendors so that the other more difficult opportunities are nullified.

Accept, Hold, Reject, or Undo Selection

In the opportunities table, selecting an individual opportunity for review you can use the quick action bar up top to accept (green checkmark icon), hold (yellow warning icon), reject (red cancel icon), or undo (blue reverse arrow icon). The platform allows you the versatility to take action, select reasoning, and reverse previous decisions if needed.

Bulk Accept and Bulk Reject Actions

It is possible to select multiple opportunities simultaneously and then take action on all of them at the same time.

1. Select numerous opportunities in the table.
2. Select one of the actions (e.g. Accept in this example) and perform it in bulk on all selected opportunities.

Why perform bulk review actions?

1. Filter Future Opportunities
   • When a user accepts, rejects or puts on hold an opportunity for a given quarter, the system will automatically apply the same disposition to that same CPN, CM/ODM, MPN, Manufacturer and Supplier, to all future quarters if an identical opportunity exists.
2. Define Blanket Criteria for Automatic Review
   • As an example: If I don't care about opportunities $500 or less, I can create a rule to always reject them and remove them from the opportunity list. Once implemented, these rules are applied automatically with each data load.
   • This helps commodity managers expedite the opportunity review process.

Adjusting Target Cost of Opportunities

Users can manually override the Target Cost ($). In this example below, the LevaData Platform indicates that your current MPN Cost ($) is $0.534887 and our recommended cost is $0.377962.

If you do not think the $0.377962 figure is realistic due to your own experience with your supply chain, you may want to correct the LevaData Platform Target Cost ($) to an adjusted price you think is more realistic like $0.45. You can click into the grey box for Target Cost ($) to edit the amount.

Bulk Adjustment

Users can also (1) bulk select opportunities by row, then (2) click the pencil icon for bulk update, and (3) adjust Opportunity (%) and/or Target Cost ($) records for all selections. This allows you to easily apply the same standard threshold or cost to a series of parts you know are similar in your sourcing:

Order Columns and Set Default View

Users can rearrange the order of the table columns and save their preferred view. On repeat login sessions, the user will see the same preferred sequence of information arrayed as previously set.

For example, the user can select the column heading on "Recommended Cost" and then drag their mouse left and drop it in front of the "MPN Cost ($)" column.

Once satisfied with the change, the user can save their column order preference by clicking the gear/save icon. This will preserve the same layout on your next login session.

Opportunity Details

Users can view the individual opportunity type details in the table by clicking on the respective opportunity type cell value to see the opportunity details.

Once drilled into the opportunity details page, the following details are available in the upper menu:

1. The opportunity record's detailed name is a concatenation of the following information: CPN, CM/ODM, Supplier, MPN, Manufacturer, and Quarter
2. The opportunity details table has the following columns: Opportunity Type, MPN Cost, Target Cost, Opportunity %, Opportunity Value, Status
3. Opportunity Graph: Bar chart showing the opportunity details by type
4. Clicking on these filters allows the users to navigate from one opportunity type to another to see different opportunity details. In the example listed above there are many possible opportunities, presenting them all together allows you to review them separately and determine the most realistic cost savings opportunity to target in the lot given your current sourcing strategy.
5. The controls allow the user to Accept, Hold, and Reject, opportunities by selecting their respective icons. Notes can be added with the Notes icon. Target Cost and Opportunity % (as well as any other table element in grey) can be updated, and the Details of the Opportunity can be Saved or Closed with the final icons in that navigation.

The following details are available in the lower tables:

1. The current part spending is compared to a recommend opportunity by a number of criteria visible above, including Manufacturer Part Number (MPN), CM/ODM, Part Cost, Cost Savings, Lead Time and Years to End of Life on the Part.
2. CPN details section shows CPN at CM/ODM level, split across the supply base. The final table will always sum up to 100% for the Split. It can be a single source or multi-source list of suppliers. This area will also indicate where the part is used in your products.
3. If the user strictly wants to see what changes from current state to recommended state, they can click on the checkbox above the opportunity details table for "Only Show Changed Values" and get a listing of only the values that change from current to recommended:

This feature helps when quickly reviewing a large number of cost savings opportunities and needing to get to the bottom-line up front when considering part swapping decisions.

Validating eBenchmark Lowest Distributor Prices

When reviewing the "eBenchmark @ Lowest Distributor" opportunities, users can access the source of the lowest market price by scrolling across the table.

Once scrolling across the table there's a column for Part Distributor Link and then click on the "See Latest Price and Availability" link to navigate to the part distributor page in a new browser window.

When you click into an Opportunity Details page, there is an additional place to review Part Distributors on recommended parts:

Note on Part Distribution Links: Some third-party supplier websites will require location authentication to provide accurate prices by region/currency. LevaData cannot validate all of these external direct supplier websites for functionality. In some cases, if your device, network, or company IT policy prevents location access then some supplier websites may not function correctly.

Validating Alternate Options

When examining opportunities of either Alternate Part or eBenchmark @ MPN+FFF Average type, users will be able to click on a single "Show me Alternate" link to get access to those matches.

The Alternate Options will display in a new window for review, the user can then select the X in the upper right to close and return to the previously reviewed opportunity without losing their place.

Taking Action on Opportunities

Select the desired opportunities from the table or choose one in the details view. Either an individual opportunity line, or select multiple opportunities based on desired criteria. Then you can take action.

All the icons to perform these actions remain disabled until at least one record is selected for action.

Accepting Opportunities

After selecting the opportunities, click on the green checkmark icon and the system will process the accept request and confirm the action is successful.

Rejecting Opportunities

After selecting the opportunities, click on the red cancel icon and select the desired review rule from the dropdown list of values. As soon as a review rule is selected, the System will process the reject request and confirm the action is successful. There are numerous possible rejection reasons to choose from.

The following list of Rejection reasons exist by default in the platform:

• Invalid/Obsolete Part Recommended
• Small Opportunity
• Invalid Price/Opportunity (data wrong)
• Incoterms/Freight Cost Difference
• Purchase Price Variance (PPV) Difference
• Savings Already Achieved
• Recommended Supplier is Too Risky
• Price Increase due to Raw material cost
• Single-Sourced Part
• Non-shiftable allocation

Holding Opportunities

In some scenarios, when reviewing opportunities, one needs additional time before making a decision to accept or reject the information. After selecting the opportunities, click the yellow warning sign icon and set on hold. The System will process the hold request and confirm the action is successful.

Reverting Previously Reviewed Opportunities

When an opportunity has already been reviewed, but new information comes to light which requires new analysis, the opportunity can be moved to Not Reviewed status. The user selects the desired targeted opportunities from the grid and clicks on the revert icon which is a blue reverse arrow. For example, filtering on Rejected opportunities, then picking one and reverting it:

Once the action is performed, the selected opportunities will be moved back to the Not Reviewed state. An alert will notify you in the top right of ther interface.

When you Accept one record, all of the inferior opportunities will be Expired - similarly, if you take a record and revert it to Not Reviewed, all of the inferior opportunities will be reverted to Not Reviewed.

Audit Trail of Review Actions

When you are interacting with opportunities, you may often find that other users have already reviewed said opportunity and you may want to make note of that or validate with them.

There are two Opportunity Audit details columns in the main summary table of Review Opportunities:

1. Reviewed By: Displays the user or system who has updated the opportunity most recently.
   • This field will read System when the opportunity was changed either via auto action rule or by a less opportunity being changed when a greater one was actioned.
2. Updated On: Displays the last opportunity modification date and time.