By: Sid Chadwick
The Director of Purchasing of an International Consumer Goods organization was visiting on a Thursday. It was her 1st visit – after calling on her for over two years. The informal understanding was that what she experienced on this 1st visit would determine the prospective supplier’s “next steps” with this Director of Purchasing.
Note: Historically, the Director of Purchasing’s company bought “8-figures/year” – from our client’s competitors.
The prospective supplier had everything for the Plant Tour – “shiny” – and prepared, including key personnel introductions.
Initial introductions and pleasantries exchanged, their Tour was scheduled to start in Customer Service & Estimating, then move to Prepress, Pressroom, Finishing and Shipping.
At Customer Service and Estimating, after initial introductions and her looking around, she asked,
“Where are your charts, showing your goals and objectives for improvement, errors made, last year’s performance numbers…and what’s been improved so far this year…?”
You could have heard a pin drop….There were no such charts or objectives or performance improvements to review…and no charts on a wall…showing department performance.
This process repeated itself – in each subsequent Plant department toured.
At the end of the Plant Tour, back in the prospective supplier’s Meeting Room, which seemed to have a “sudden dead body in the room atmosphere,” the Director of Purchasing explained:
“We don’t choose our supplier’s based on ‘Low Price.’ We want the best, consistent quality available, which includes time required to work effectively with a supplier’s organization, responsiveness, reliability of promises kept, and perhaps most importantly – documented Continuous Improvement, with improved costs – every year. No exceptions……I’m somewhat surprised your Rep didn’t gain how we carefully choose suppliers - from her visits to our offices and plants.
…From this visit, your organization, which has impressed our Engineers, needs to determine if you want to step-up to what an international company like us requires of its suppliers, long-term.”
Now, as I reflect on our changing business landscape, and as our world through communications and consolidation of Buyers seems to continuously become smaller, such values expected of suppliers - are NOT just for International Buyers.
And Reps should be communicating, in writing, what’s important to major prospects – and customers.
Note: Position Descriptions for your successful Inside and Outside Reps – are changing.
Comments