In yesterdays post we discussed sourcing strategies versus tactics

In yesterdays post we discussed sourcing strategies versus tactics

In the retail vertical let?s start implementing specific short term tactics that can drive immediate results…

A great example of the above might be augmenting the manual process that many retail sourcing professionals use today to find new sources of supply interested in bidding for their business rather than continuing to live with the same small, known group of suppliers they have used for years. Historically this has been a very time consuming practice that results in few if any new sources of supply. This represents a great opportunity to deploy a tactic that can have an immediate impact for an organization without the need for the implementation of a complete new sourcing strategy.

There is a specific process to follow that will encourage new sources of supply to want to bid for a companies business beyond just being invited. Simply having your buyer assigned the task of picking up the phone and calling new sources of supply will not result in new suppliers agreeing to bid for your business. There are specific objections to overcome and questions to answer that require a specific skill set. This is a perfect opportunity for Software as a Service implementations of supplier research. Skilled providers in this area can provide companies with as many as a half dozen or more willing new sources of supply in as little as thirty minutes that may in fact reside within a companies existing zip code or area code.

Sourcing tactics can be isolated procurement related actions or events that take advantage of opportunities offered by the gaps within strategic plan such as lack of new sources of supply mentioned above. So our tactic here would be to find additional sources of supply that we can invite to compete for a companies business in a variety of categories. The fact is that additional sources of supply competing for a companies business results in compressed pricing and often better quality products. There are also an optimal number of suppliers that will encourage the optimal results.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.