There have been some very interesting posts-comments-responses regarding an original article blogged by Tim Minahan. Instead of trying to jump in and add to the thread, I think it is all very well summarized by Michael Lamoureux at his personal Sourcing Innovation blog.

I find the discussion very interesting as it touches on a number of hot button topics in e-Sourcing such as the usage of the term “reverse auction”, what e-Sourcing is and is not, perceived buyer laziness, visibility into poor work or process, supplier resistance and many others. Many years ago, we took the hot potato term “reverse auction” out of the supplier side of the software and replaced it with ‘Event’ and ‘Project’ because so many sourcing teams were hypersensitive to the supplier perception. If a sourcing project looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck – then it must be a…anything but a reverse auction! This is actually a very reasonable request for the software but can be amusing how it does not ever pass the Duck Test.

It is worth the time to navigate through all the links to get a good picture of all the differing opinions and valid counter-arguments.