Patent ID: 7219066

Claim:
A Skills Matching Application (SMA) comprising: means for invoking the SMA from a Requisition/Catalog (REQ/CAT) application, said REQ/CAT application being able to requisition technical services from a catalog of contracted suppliers; means for a user to enter a services request into the SMA, the services request further comprising a Statement of Work (SOW) and a skills detail checklist for each of the technical skills needed to perform said services request; means for the SMA to identify contracted suppliers for each of said technical skills needed to perform said services request and to assign a priority to the identified suppliers based on said technical skills; means for notifying the identified contracted suppliers in sequence based upon said SMA assigned priority that said services request has been entered into the SMA application; means for said notified suppliers to retrieve and review said services request using the SMA application; means for receiving at the SMA from a notified supplier a submission identifying a candidate or candidates having the technical skills required to perform said services request; means for notifying the user that a submission in response to said services request has been received at the SMA from one of said identified suppliers and displaying for the user the response submitted by said supplier; and means for the SMA to notify all said notified suppliers when the user acts upon the services request.