Today’s post is by Lauren Finnessy; Account Manager at SafeSourcing.
If you’re a business owner, large or small, CEO, CFO, or President of a company you should be asking yourself if your company can benefit from procurement services. Depending on the size of the organization you may or may not be familiar with all the goods and services that your company is purchasing. This is where procurement services can come into play!
According to Wikipedia procurement is “the acquisition of good and/or services. It is favorable that the goods/services are appropriate and that they are procured at the best possible cost to meet the needs of the purchases in terms of quality and quantity, time and location.”
This sourcing professional believes that if a company were to review at least 10% of their annual spend, they would find many opportunities to improve the bottom line. Below you will see a few of the times that would be most beneficial to take advantage of procurement services.
- 1.Reviewing/Resigning a current contract with an incumbent supplier. – If you’ve been with the same supplier for the length of multiple contracts, it’s time to re-evaluate. You may not be interested in switching vendors, but by taking advantage of procurement tools you will be able to negotiate a better rate for the goods and services that you’re purchasing.
- When you start a new task/department within your business. – Every time your business grows or expands is an opportunity to take advantage of procurement tools. Even if the goods and services that you’ll need to operate this new department are things you’re currently using, the quantity of these items would be a great opportunity to evaluate how much you’re spending to have the goods and services you’re using on a regular basis.
- When you are analyzing you upcoming budget – Each year when your company monitors your profit margin and areas within your budget that cause you concern is a great time to evaluate what procurement services would be beneficial for you. For example, you may find areas of your business that are critical for your end product or service, but you feel that you are spending too large of a percent of your budget to produce such results.
Just think of all the different areas you bottom line is affected by. Each of these is an area for potential savings thru the use of procurement tools. By partnering with a procurement professional, you’ll be able to evaluate more than a few areas of your business where you can start saving for your next purchase or contract for your goods and services.
For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can help you evaluate your savings opportunities, please contact a Customer Service representative.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.