Purchasing Best Practices – Designed To Profit
Why do you need purchasing best practices? Well because purchasing
costs vie with salary costs to be the biggest depletion of a company’s
profits. Every time you save money on purchasing you are directly
contributing to a company’s bottom line. One Dollar saved is One dollar
earned.
So how do you define purchasing best practices and
ensure that they are adhered to? Well you define your purchasing
strategy and ensure that all staff understand it and all your purchasing
staff adhere to it. So what kinds of purchasing strategies go into
your purchasing best practices?
- Suppliers
Choose a good spread of suppliers who can provide you with reliable
supplies of quality products at good prices with good terms. Leverage
your suppliers against each other so that competitive prices and terms
are possible. Keep the supplier information up to date. - Contracts
Provide all major suppliers with a Master Agreement so that they are
contracted to supply your products at the prices and terms agreed. - Supplier Relationships
Ensure that good relationships are maintained with your suppliers so
that problems can be easily solved you take the best advantage of their
services.
This is one of the key purchasing best practices as happy,
well looked after suppliers ensure that purchasing is a relative stress
and trouble free activity. - Preferred Supplier List
This should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. - Stock
Ensure that ordering is only undertaken when the stock needs to be
replenished and that the stock is kept at its optimum level. - Cost Reduction
This must be key to all of your activities. - Deliveries
These must be consolidated if at all possible. Deliveries must be
tracked and all goods checked in. Only quality items that are as
ordered is to be accepted. - Negotiation
Negotiate hard but fairly so that your suppliers understand your need
for keen prices and good terms but still wish to do business with you - Product Information
Ensure that all product information and prices are current and that
complete catalogues are maintained. - Staff
Ensure that all staff are fully trained and motivated and understand all the business goals. - Policies
Communicate all purchasing policies to relevant staff. - Management Information
Take full advantage of the management information available
from the computing system. This information should be used to make the
best and most advantageous purchasing decisions. - Management
All management and executives should understand and maintain the purchasing best practices. - Centralized
All purchasing information should be centralized and the purchasing activities centralized as much as possible. - Integrated
Purchasing should be fully integrated with the stock room, warehousing
and accounting so that profits are enhanced and a complete financial
picture is available. - Technology
Buy and install the best technology that your company can afford in
order for your purchasing department to be the best that it can. - Incentive
Provide incentives for all your staff to save money in purchasing.
As you can see the above purchasing best practices
embrace all of the purchasing activities and should lead to a well
managed, efficient and profitable purchasing department and ultimately
profitable company.
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