Is your Procurement Department helping the rest of your business?
Procurement done right can be the difference between adding VALUE to your customer or not, being PROFITABLE or not, yet so many companies neglect this area of the business. Whether there are problems that you are to aware of, or obvious issues that are difficult to solve, these are affecting your bottom line every day.
The PROCUREMENT PROCESS
Needs Analysis
Requirements for products or services originate from various departments within the business...Sales,Production, Finance, Administration. The procurement function is to use systems to determine the exact specification of what is needed as well to ensure the need is a true need and cannot be satisfied without a new purchase
Sourcing
This step involves assessing the current database of suppliers to see if they can satisfy the need, should there be no available suppliers, the search is carried out externally. Initially you would provide the early qualifying suppliers with your intention to conduct further assessment, This is of course after they have met the minimum criteria
Supplier Evaluation
Once the suppliers are narrowed down to the most favourable ones, it is important to conduct a thorough evaluation ensuring the supplier meets the qualifying criteria to supply to your business. This step can often be missed, or done incorrectly, either due to poor business process, or it could simply be that the processes are not followed
Supplier Selection
Proper onboarding of a new supplier will contribute to the overall success of this new partnerships, Ensuring company policy and procedures are followed will not only set the tone for the business relationship, but ensure alignment with long term strategies
Purchasing
Formal purchasing processes has to be followed when engaging with a supplier. Purchasing plays a vital role in ensuring all the hard work in the previous steps are not in vain. Purchasers are the gate keepers of the companies very important cashflow resources
Expediting
Expediting is the task of speeding up the delivery from the supplier. Although purchases should carry a set lead time, things often go wrong in the supply chain. With necessary pressure you could find yourself waiting longer than promise for your goods.
Inspection of Goods
This step is vital in the overall QC within your value chain. Goods should be thoroughly inspected and either passed on to receipt into the system or rejected and purchasing notified so the supplier can correct as soon as possible, not adding an further delays
GRV/Goods Receipts
Even though goods are physically on your premises, it cannot and should not be used, until it is booked into the system, generating a GRV (Goods Received Voucher) This steps confirms that the correct qty at the correct price was delivered by the supplier
Payment
Having an efficient creditors process ensure the correct supplier invoices are processed on time for payment. In order to keep supplier relationships healthy and sustainable, its important to pay on time and communicate should there be a delay or a reason for late payment
Our Solution
We follow a very clear and defined process to help you with your procurement challenges. It's usually difficult to see where a problem lies or how to fix it from within the business. Our non-biased external view gives us the edge in improving the efficiency and output in your business. The steps we follow are: Assess, Correct, Train & Maintain
The main focal points are Human Resource,Systems and Business Process. When these are correctly deployed, your chances of success are higher
Assess
Whether you are aware of a problem or note, it's important to first assess and measure what is happening within procurement. We would typically look for inefficiencies, deviation from procedure, and where standard processes are missing.
Train
No solution is complete or fit for the business if it can only be applied by external parties. Its important for the internal staff to be trained and familiar so they are self sufficient
Correct
Each business is unique, so there is no blanket solution that can be applied to every business to solve its challenges, We tailor make a solution, that takes your situation into consideration, whether it is capacity, budget, or other priorities,
Maintain
Maintenance is important on an ongoing basis to ensure that any any area that has been correct does not regress. This maintenance is done conducting frequent assessments
Detailed Services
SME Portal can offer our Procurement services both remotely and in person. Our affordable options takes your business into consideration. We offer Hourly Consulting, Project Based pricing, as well as on retainer. Book a FREE CONSULTATION with our expert consultant to get started with solving your business's procurement challenges.
