An intelligent sourcing controller for sourcing potential suppliers from external sources such as the Internet as well as internal sources such as a local data server. The intelligent sourcing engine controller provides a supplier appraisal to the buyer as decision support. The intelligent sourcing controller integrates its supplier appraisal criteria with the buyer's sourcing criteria, classifying the collected information in the same way a buyer configures his requirements for the suppliers. The intelligent sourcing controller synchronizes the Internet sourcing results with the local data server after each search to renew data in the local data server in time and the sourcing criteria can be reused in future for decision support.