When asked about the aim of purchasing, the typical answer is that it involves acquiring the appropriate products or services, in the correct quantities, at the right time, and place, and at a reasonable cost while maintaining excellent quality. Shoppers often encounter conflicting goals when striving for optimal quality, service, and price. Let’s delve deeper into these objectives.
Providing an uninterrupted flow of materials and services
One of the main reasons for reduced productivity and customer dissatisfaction is the lack of necessary materials and services. The purchasing department’s primary objective is to prevent such hindrances by ensuring sufficient inventory and services are available. Additionally, the purchasing team explores ways to speed up the flow of goods and services through the supply chain.
Purchasing products competitively
To achieve this goal, buyers need to constantly seek out supplier partnerships that offer the most advantageous mix of quality, affordability, and service tailored to the company’s requirements. Tactical purchasing places a greater emphasis on price in contrast to procurement, which takes into account the cost dynamics of their suppliers and negotiates optimal agreements for quality, price, and service that provide the best value.
Providing consistent, quality purchased materials and services
In today’s market, buyers strive for high-quality products at reduced costs. To ensure this, maintaining quality is crucial, which can be achieved through activities such as communicating product specifications, regularly reviewing purchased goods and services with suppliers, and adhering to delivery standards.
Product Specification – A statement of acceptable physical, electrical, and/or chemical properties or an acceptable range of properties that distinguish one product or grade from another.
Developing the supplier base
As buyers, it’s important to always strive for better relationships with our suppliers. By implementing strategic sourcing practices, we can go beyond just maintaining these relationships and instead work towards creating value-added services, improving product quality, developing new products together, and even training programs that foster stronger partnerships with our suppliers.
Supplier Base – The group of suppliers from which a firm acquires goods and services.
Developing people resources
As the purchasing organization becomes leaner, there is a greater need for team-based management styles. This requires continuous development and training of personnel at all levels to create a professional staff ready to handle decision-making, constantly search for improvement, and acquire the technical knowledge needed to be “world-class.”