Professional Buying is Essential for Profit
The buyer’s job is not often thought of as glamorous or exciting but, in many ways, can make or break a business. With buying representing anything upto 70% of revenue you need to employ the best you can afford whilst still keeping an eye on them!
With a global economy, purchasing from a foreign country opens you up to difficulties over specification, quality and, more worryingly, outright fraud. For those who only source from the UK it is important the buyer still has a good grasp of specification, who the major suppliers are and the quality needed.
A common error is to always choose the cheapest when there are many other factors to consider, for example reliability, flexibility, logistics, loyalty, credit terms and so on. Many of these also apply to the purchase of services as I expect lots of us have been unpleasantly surprised by the likes of banks, insurance companies and utility suppliers!
I mentioned fraud, earlier, and it is something none of us want to believe our staff are capable of but it happens from time to time. A close personal relationship between buyer and supplier can reap dividends when things are in short supply but, get too close, and the temptation can be difficult to refuse. What starts off as a bottle of whisky at Christmas can escalate and suck a buyer into a situation where he, or she, can be ‘coerced’ into price rises and more. Bigger companies often move buyers around to remove this problem – as much as possible.
With buying being so important to your company profits we provide a free introductory meeting to discuss purchasing, and its pitfalls, so please call us 07967 123201 or email andrew@thetakeoverexpert.com
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