Computer-based supplier knowledge management system and method

1. A computer-based supplier knowledge management (SKM) method, comprising:

providing a network accessible computer system comprising at least one computer processor coupled to at least one storage medium and computer program code configured for storage therein and execution thereby; and

executing the computer program code to perform the computer-based supplier knowledge management method, including:

establishing an electronic profile for one or more users from an entity, including identifying preferred suppliers in association with the electronic profile;

establishing electronically a plurality of supplier profiles, each supplier profile comprising a set of supplier keywords;

including user selected client tags representing user endorsements in one or more of the plurality of supplier profiles;

a user generating an electronic request for information (RFI) for performing an electronic search of supplier information, the RFI comprising a set of user specified RFI keywords corresponding to a project for an entity; and

electronically processing the RFI, including:

comparing the RFI keywords with supplier keywords of one or more of the plurality of supplier profiles to generate a filtered set of supplier profiles and identifying any preferred suppliers associated with the entity in the filtered set of supplier profiles;

comparing the RFI keywords with client tags in the filtered set of supplier profiles to generate a list of candidate suppliers; and

displaying at a computer screen the list of candidate suppliers.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein

the RFI identifies one or more RFI good and/or service type for the project and each supplier profile includes one or more supplier good and/or service type, and

processing the RFI includes good and/or service type matching that determines the list of candidate suppliers as suppliers having a good and/or service type matching an RFI good and/or service type.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein executing the computer program code to perform the method further includes performing, by the system, the good and/or service type matching before the keyword matching, and wherein the keyword matching is only performed on supplier profiles having a good and/or service type match.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing the keyword matching includes calculating a keyword matching score for each of the one or more supplier profiles.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein each supplier profile further includes the one or more of the client tags and/or a supplier description, and performing the keyword matching for a supplier includes:

determining matches between RFI keywords and the client tags in the supplier profile; and/or

determining matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier keywords in the supplier profile; and/or

determining matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier description in the supplier profile.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein performing the keyword matching for the supplier profile includes:

calculating a supplier tag score based on a number of matches between the RFI keywords and the client tags in the supplier profile; and/or

calculating a supplier keyword score based on a number of matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier keywords in the supplier profile; and/or

calculating a supplier description score based on a number of matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier description in the supplier profile.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein:

calculating the supplier tag score for the supplier profile includes summing the number of matches between the RFI keywords and the client tags in the supplier profile; and/or

calculating the supplier keyword score for the supplier profile includes summing the number of matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier keywords in the supplier profile; and/or

calculating the supplier description score for the supplier profile includes summing the number of matches between the RFI keywords and the supplier description in the supplier profile.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the method includes calculating the keyword matching score for a supplier profile by summing at least two of the supplier tag score, the supplier keyword score, and the supplier description score.

9. The method of claim 4 , wherein generating the list of candidate suppliers includes ordering the list of candidate suppliers based on the keyword matching scores.

10. The method of claim 4 , wherein calculating a keyword matching score for each supplier on the list of candidate suppliers includes associating a numerical value for each keyword match between an RFI keyword and a supplier keyword from the corresponding supplier profile.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein calculating a keyword matching score for each supplier includes accumulating the numerical values for each supplier based on the keyword matching for the corresponding supplier profile.

12. The method of claim 1 , including storing the set of preferred suppliers in association with an entity profile.

13. The method of claim 1 , including storing the set of preferred suppliers in association with a user profile.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the supplier profile comprises a plurality of elements, including a description of services offered, peer endorsement tags and, optionally, one or more of a logo, web site URL, contact information, client testimonials and social media links.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

providing, by the system, mechanisms to enable user tagging of a supplier profile, wherein a tag is a word tag applied to the supplier profile as an electronic endorsement of the supplier via its supplier profile.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:

first pass sorting the list of candidate suppliers, including putting preferred suppliers above other suppliers.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

second pass sorting the list of candidate suppliers, including determining a tag matching score for each supplier and ordering suppliers based on the tag matching score, with a supplier having the highest tag score above suppliers with lower tag scores.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein second pass sorting includes, if two or more suppliers tag scores match, sorting based on a number of client endorsements for each tag for each supplier, with the supplier having the highest number above the other suppliers.

19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising:

third pass sorting the list of candidate suppliers, including listing suppliers having a highest keyword matching score above suppliers with lower keyword matching scores.

20. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

imposing, by the system, an upper limit on a number of supplier keywords for the supplier profile.

21. The method of claim 20 , wherein the upper limit of supplier keywords is equal to or less than 20 total supplier keywords.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the upper limit of supplier keywords is 10 total supplier keywords.

23. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

providing, by the system, electronic mechanisms enabling a supplier to add a set of keywords representing supplier competencies as supplier keywords.

24. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

in response to a user input via a user input device, adding an endorsement tag to a supplier profile.

25. The method of claim 1 , wherein the supplier profiles are in the field of healthcare and supplier competencies are related to healthcare goods and/or services and/or goods and/or services useful to healthcare providers.

26. The method of claim 1 , further including providing a concierge module that learns from historic request patterns and stores results from the historic request patterns for future use in generating the list of candidate suppliers.

27. The method of claim 26 , wherein the concierge module comprises an automated component and a manual component, wherein the automated component learns from historic request patterns to recommend appropriate suppliers and the manual component enables a user to monitor system-generated recommendations and assist where results of the automated component are insufficient.

28. A computer-based supplier knowledge management (SKM) method, comprising:

providing a network accessible computer system comprising at least one computer processor coupled to at least one storage medium and computer program code configured for storage therein and execution thereby; and

executing the computer program code to perform the computer-based supplier knowledge management method, including:

establishing an electronic profile for one or more users from an entity, including identifying preferred suppliers in association with the electronic profile;

establishing electronically a plurality of supplier profiles, each supplier profile comprising a set of supplier keywords;

a user generating an electronic request for information (RFI) to initiate an electronic search of supplier information, the RFI comprising a set of user specified RFI keywords corresponding to a project for an entity; and

electronically processing the RFI, including performing keyword matching, including determining a first match between the RFI keywords and supplier keywords of one or more of the plurality of supplier profiles to generate a filtered set of supplier profiles and determining a second match between the RFI keywords and client tags in the filtered set of supplier profiles to generate a list of candidate suppliers for the project, including identifying any preferred suppliers associated with the entity in the filtered set of supplier profiles; and

displaying at a computer screen the client tags for filtering the plurality of suppliers.