What kind of supplier is your brand escort?
For brands, continuous access to high-quality, low-price, timely delivery of products and services beyond expectations is the eternal goal of procurement work. To achieve this goal, we must have excellent and loyal suppliers. The so-called superior is that the supplier can provide us with high-quality, low-price, timely delivery products and services that exceed expectations; the so-called loyalty is that the supplier always regards us as the first customer, always take our needs as the direction of continuous improvement, and unswervingly support us even when we encounter difficulties.
However, in some enterprises, the reality is that good supplier are usually not loyal, and loyal suppliers are usually not good enough, so constantly developing and changing suppliers have become a helpless choice for these enterprises. The result is that the quality, price, and delivery date fluctuate frequently, and the service is good and bad from time to time, even though the relevant departments are busy, continuous access to high-quality, low-price, timely delivery products and services that exceed expectations are always out of reach.
What causes it? I think it of the fundamental reasons may be that these enterprises do not find suppliers that match them and do not realize that when the attractiveness of their brands is not strong enough, they blindly pursue suppliers with substantial funds, large scale, and sound management mechanisms.
But do not choose suitable suppliers and can make their brands grow and protect themselves.
As a brand, how can we find a suitable supplier?
The selection of suppliers should follow the principle of "fit."
The attractiveness of brands to suppliers determines the loyalty of suppliers to enterprises. When choosing suppliers, brands should also pay attention to "match each other and love each other". Otherwise, the cooperation is either unpleasant or not for a long time. Therefore, when choosing suppliers, we should choose the "right" supplier rather than the "best" supplier according to the actual situation, such as our scale, popularity, purchase volume, and ability to pay.
1. The so-called suitable.
First: the supplier's product structure adapts to our needs;
Second: the supplier's qualification, R & D capability, quality assurance capability, production capacity, and cost control ability can meet our requirements;
Third: the supplier desires to cooperate with us for a long time and is willing to continuously improve our requirements. Fourth, our attraction to suppliers is strong enough that it is possible to control them effectively for a long time.
2. The evaluation of suppliers should pay attention to the development potential of suppliers.
Existing capability evaluation is the basic element to evaluate suppliers, such as quality system certification, R & D capability, quality control capability of design process, production capacity, production organization mode, quality control capability of logistics and manufacturing process, cost control capability, existing market, service to the existing market, product traceability, supplier management ability and so on. However, in order to select a suitable training object, it is not enough to evaluate its existing capacity, it also needs to evaluate its development potential, and its development potential should be a key consideration in determining the training object. When the current ability and development potential can not be available simultaneously, give priority to suppliers with good development potential.
In general, the evaluation of the development potential of suppliers should include the following aspects:
(1) The highest decision-maker of suppliers is a "businessman" who is eager for quick success and a quick profit, or an "entrepreneur" with a long-term vision.
(2) Whether the development direction of suppliers is consistent with our development needs, whether there is a clear strategic plan, and whether there are specific action plans and records to achieve strategic planning.
(3) Whether the supplier's quality objectives are clear and action plans and records to achieve the quality objectives.
(4) Whether the supplier has a quality system upgrade plan and whether the existing quality system has been really implemented.
(5) Whether the quality of the existing staff of suppliers can meet the needs of the development of their enterprises, and whether there is a medium-and long-term human resource development plan.
(6) Whether the existing management means of suppliers can meet the needs of the development of their enterprises and whether there are improvement plans.
(7) What is the social reputation of the supplier and whether the associated suppliers have confidence in it.
(8) Whether the essential work of supplier enterprise management is solid and improvement plans.
3. The management of suppliers should be "a combination of grace and power," with equal emphasis on control and help.
The standard methods of supplier management are: monitor the supplier's supply performance, evaluate the supplier according to the monitoring results, carry out hierarchical management, reward and punish the bad, and rectify the unqualified items; regularly re-evaluate suppliers, adjust procurement measures according to the evaluation results, and eliminate unable suppliers.
This is an ex-post control measure, which is helpful to prevent the recurrence of the same error. Still, it is not necessarily obvious to avoid the mistakes and improve the ability of suppliers.
Post time: Jun-01-2022