Tip the balance in your favour.
Did you know that bits-team.com also provide support and training on Supplier Relationship Management? Your suppliers have a detailed plan prescribing how they manage you and their other customers. Do you have such a plan? Striking the right relationship with your suppliers and managing the balance of power could be the competitive edge you are looking for.
People who sell things for a living are usually very well trained in what they do. They are trained in how to read, interpret and manipulate human behaviour. With the ratio of sales training received by a sales professional often being 5 hours to every 1 received by a procurement professional, this can often give the sales person in a negotiation an advantage. Couple this with a lack of relationship management and a failure to plan ahead for a negotiation and you might be leaving a great deal of value on the table.
You can start layering on value through your procurement process.
Many organisations see Procurement as an administrative function rather than a value adding part of the business. Furthermore, many organisations do not establish a procurement function and simply have a person that issues purchase orders in accordance with a deal negotiated by a business function owner.
If you fall into either of these categories, some investment in training your team will pay dividends. We can provide relationship management training that shows your team members just how those in sales roles categorise their customers and how this influences the level of service and price leverage that each customer is entitled to. Furthermore, your team can be given the skills and information to allow them to do the same with your suppliers.
By actively managing your relationships you can shift the balance of power. Then by expanding the understanding of human behaviour in the negotiation room and learning how to favour the outcome you want, you start layering on value through your procurement process.
Even when you are confident that you have a good price, have you got a good deal?
Those in sales roles are more likely to consider the whole deal when putting together an offer or negotiating a contract. Often the price is carefully pitched at a level that will entice you in, only to discover after execution that certain aspects you need are not included. Once you have signed you will invariably find that these aspects come at a very high price indeed.
Planning ahead and anticipating your suppliers moves will protect you against this phenomenon, once you get good at it, you can turn the tables and build in future value to your deals that your supplier doesn’t see coming! The trick is to do all this without exploiting your supplier, so together you can build a mutually beneficial relationship that is sustainable.
Check out our training courses or call or email us for a bespoke solution for your organisation.
Featured photograph, scales from Kansas territory trading post circa 1848.