Consider the obstacles to purchasing with purpose!
Today’s post is from our blog archives at SafeSourcing Inc.
With billions at stake in retail purchasing, it is imperative for buyers, category managers and others with purchasing responsibility should remember that there can be more benefit to contracts than just price alone. Any retail procurement is actually a purchase with purpose to ensure customer safety, satisfaction and a myriad of other issues.
Consider the obstacles to purchasing with purpose. The world market is too large and overwhelming for a procurement knowledge worker to know if products are safe, secure or socially responsible. Often when a purchaser seeks to buy accordingly, they find that the price of certainty is too high. They opt for a less expensive, less trustworthy option. This may mean accidentally endangering customers, alienating some customers who expect a certain level of quality, or even inviting legal or public relations problems. Retailers simply lack the time in order to determine purchasing with purpose for thousands and thousands of products and services.
That’s why SafeSourcing offers a secure, intelligent e-procurement suite of tools under the SafeSourceIt™ banner that are delivered as a “White Glove Service” that do much of the work for retailers procurement professionals. Additionally, the SafeSourceIt™ Global Retail Supplier Database uses unique certification standards plus well-known standards such as Fair Trade, Green Seal, ECO-LOGO, GFSI, SQF, and, for meat products, Certified Humane Raised/Hand-Fed to vet is vendors before they are invited to participate in any eRFX sourcing event such as an RFI, RFP or RFQ which are also called a reverse auctions.
With the standards already in place, procurement is a matter of matching demand with supply. SafeSourcing sets up eRFX events such as auctions in as little as minutes and even finds purchasing partners to increase bulk buying power.
With over 500,000 suppliers being vetted during the bidding process, cost is still one of the final factors when filling the retailer’s procurement needs. Yet each purchase is a purchase with purpose. Goods are safe, secure and support companies social responsibility programs.
Reducing the cost of safe, secure, socially responsible goods cannot be accomplished by one purchaser alone. If retailers want to match quality products to the best prices, they should look to SafeSourcing for efficient and fast e-procurement which can also be performed as Procurement as a Service.
For more information on this topic, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.
