Purchasing Departments - How Difficult Is Yours?
Discussion
I'm trying to get a bit of a handle on whether I'm unlucky, unreasonable, or if purchasing departments everywhere are as officious as ours.
Every single thing I seem to want to buy results in weeks if not months of back and forth over T&Cs and details which seem to border on trivia - it almost feels like they've totally lost sight of the fact that the business has to function and they simply get tunnel vision on "must make them accept our T&Cs".
How do you fare with yours?
Every single thing I seem to want to buy results in weeks if not months of back and forth over T&Cs and details which seem to border on trivia - it almost feels like they've totally lost sight of the fact that the business has to function and they simply get tunnel vision on "must make them accept our T&Cs".
How do you fare with yours?
It depends, what are you buying biros or X-ray machines?
Being a small business we have a lot of pragmatism, but understand why large corporates don't (some staff would take the piss) but it depends on relative value on how hard you negotiate on terms
When I used to directly negotiate terms with suppliers / clients I'd pick my top 3 must haves from the Ts and Cs and just go in with those and let them have the rest. There were a few deal breakers that I'd very rarely sign up to like unlimited liability or ridiculous payments terms (client side)
Being a small business we have a lot of pragmatism, but understand why large corporates don't (some staff would take the piss) but it depends on relative value on how hard you negotiate on terms
When I used to directly negotiate terms with suppliers / clients I'd pick my top 3 must haves from the Ts and Cs and just go in with those and let them have the rest. There were a few deal breakers that I'd very rarely sign up to like unlimited liability or ridiculous payments terms (client side)
Try dealing with central government procurement!
Quote, then wait 2 weeks, response; "Oh we need to go to tender", 1 month later email in inbox "are you interested in tendering", reply yes.. 2 weeks later "Request for proposal"... deadline 1 month later.. etc, etc.
Maybe 12 months later you will have a sale..
So thank your lucky stars
Quote, then wait 2 weeks, response; "Oh we need to go to tender", 1 month later email in inbox "are you interested in tendering", reply yes.. 2 weeks later "Request for proposal"... deadline 1 month later.. etc, etc.
Maybe 12 months later you will have a sale..
So thank your lucky stars
ringram said:
Try dealing with central government procurement!
painful is an understatement 
Everything has to be sqeaky clean for 'taxpayer' value therefore "the process" seems to cost more than the contract value and involve about 10 emails and 4 people to book a simple 1 day course for a director earning 70k a year ringram said:
Try dealing with central government procurement!
Quote, then wait 2 weeks, response; "Oh we need to go to tender", 1 month later email in inbox "are you interested in tendering", reply yes.. 2 weeks later "Request for proposal"... deadline 1 month later.. etc, etc.
Maybe 12 months later you will have a sale..
So thank your lucky stars
We gave up with CentralGov for a similar reason, despite being on a framework that took 18 months to win.Quote, then wait 2 weeks, response; "Oh we need to go to tender", 1 month later email in inbox "are you interested in tendering", reply yes.. 2 weeks later "Request for proposal"... deadline 1 month later.. etc, etc.
Maybe 12 months later you will have a sale..
So thank your lucky stars
'Urgent response required' so you'd drop everything to complete the tender within their 1-2 week deadline, then it would go into a black hole, often for months. After much chasing, you would eventually get a no for often bizarre reasons then find out the encumbant supplier had won. Oh so we were there to tick your EU compitition boxes and never had any chance of winning (sounds a bit like FIFA!). No thanks.
foliedouce said:
We gave up with CentralGov for a similar reason, despite being on a framework that took 18 months to win.
'Urgent response required' so you'd drop everything to complete the tender within their 1-2 week deadline, then it would go into a black hole, often for months. After much chasing, you would eventually get a no for often bizarre reasons then find out the encumbant supplier had won. Oh so we were there to tick your EU compitition boxes and never had any chance of winning (sounds a bit like FIFA!). No thanks.
Unfortunately this goes on with Big Business too. Alternative quotes will be sought to validate an existing supplier who may be in a contract with them. Benchmarking clauses can be part of these contracts.'Urgent response required' so you'd drop everything to complete the tender within their 1-2 week deadline, then it would go into a black hole, often for months. After much chasing, you would eventually get a no for often bizarre reasons then find out the encumbant supplier had won. Oh so we were there to tick your EU compitition boxes and never had any chance of winning (sounds a bit like FIFA!). No thanks.
If you are feeling really mischievous I suppose you could always put in a remarkably low quote (marginally-costed) to fill any slack capacity you might have. Doesn't half stir things up.
From a purchasing perspective it does depend on what you're wanting to buy, from whom and why?
As a "user" T&Cs may seem irrelevant and hopefully they are................... but;
Who is responsible for picking up the pieces if it all goes tits up, what's the total cost of bringing on board a new supplier, what research have you done into the financial stability of your "chosen supplier", why isn't an existing supplier meeting your needs?
Photocopy paper was my great bug bear................... do you know how much a largish corporate spends on paper, how much stock a company holds, what the quality is, what percentage pulp makes up of the price you pay????? No and why should you.. Rinkydink stationers have just been on the phone and offered you 1000 boxes at £x!
That all said and done your procurement team should be working alongside you so that you don't see them as the "spend police" but as a useful support function, saving you the time to actually do what you're paid for (I'm assuming purchasing isn't in your job description)
As a "user" T&Cs may seem irrelevant and hopefully they are................... but;
Who is responsible for picking up the pieces if it all goes tits up, what's the total cost of bringing on board a new supplier, what research have you done into the financial stability of your "chosen supplier", why isn't an existing supplier meeting your needs?
Photocopy paper was my great bug bear................... do you know how much a largish corporate spends on paper, how much stock a company holds, what the quality is, what percentage pulp makes up of the price you pay????? No and why should you.. Rinkydink stationers have just been on the phone and offered you 1000 boxes at £x!
That all said and done your procurement team should be working alongside you so that you don't see them as the "spend police" but as a useful support function, saving you the time to actually do what you're paid for (I'm assuming purchasing isn't in your job description)
I've worked in purchasing for a long time and I've always said it can be a very thankless role.
From my point of view I feel in sandwiched between finance and sales with sales being the most difficult.
They want the best quality at the cheapest price and every variant despite not being able to give a forecast.
It's about finding an almost impossible balance of sourcing good quality yet at a price low enough where they can make decent margins.
A lot of what I source comes from overseas and it doesn't even bear thinking about if an order is delayed which means we may occasionally run out of stock or worse a proportion of that shipment suffers quality issues.
Even if it's beyond your control purchasing take the flak.
All the time trying to stop the stock holding level from going above x amount to keep finance happy.
However having come from originally a small manufacturing background I can appreciate the bigger picture.
Sales sell products and do very well I may add but as a result the company does well and I have a job to go to.
From my point of view I feel in sandwiched between finance and sales with sales being the most difficult.
They want the best quality at the cheapest price and every variant despite not being able to give a forecast.
It's about finding an almost impossible balance of sourcing good quality yet at a price low enough where they can make decent margins.
A lot of what I source comes from overseas and it doesn't even bear thinking about if an order is delayed which means we may occasionally run out of stock or worse a proportion of that shipment suffers quality issues.
Even if it's beyond your control purchasing take the flak.
All the time trying to stop the stock holding level from going above x amount to keep finance happy.
However having come from originally a small manufacturing background I can appreciate the bigger picture.
Sales sell products and do very well I may add but as a result the company does well and I have a job to go to.
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