One of the basic indicators for professional skills of the purchase executive is the awareness of sources of information upon suppliers. Among the instruments frequently used there are: on-line search, electronic sites and web- sites of a company. Special magazines, advertisements, directory of suppliers and trade stock, negotiations with sales representatives, colleagues, professional contacts and own accounts and records are also related to the information sources.
For the purpose of this article, the most wide-spread of the mentioned instruments are reviewed.
On-line sources
Dynamically developing information volume useful for every skilled purchase executive can be found in the internet. The main difficulty most of the purchasers face is not so much finding information as extracting useful facts, consolidation, sorting, analysis and further application. Some web-addresses which might be particularly useful for purchase offices are given below.
UA-tenders -
One of the biggest data portal giving info about peculiar features of state and private commercial tendering process in Ukraine. A wide range of different types of suppliers and customers for various categories is given on this web-site, besides, the information upon legal bases of organization and tendering out is represented. Purchasing forum is also available.
Institute for Supply Management (ISM) -
Monthly reports about the activities of productive and non-productive business are given; the analysis of leading indicators of economical operations in the USA is carried out.
D&B,
D&B comes across with paid basic reports of a company on-line and free information upon company location, its key reference details, contacts, etc.
Informational database of the stock market issuers in Ukraine
This resource gives monthly, quarter and annual reports of the stock market issuers in Ukraine. This is an invaluable resource for those who intend to evaluate financial stability of a supplier. Balance, report on financial results, report on the flow of funds of almost every big company in Ukraine is available.
Thomas Register -
The most detailed information source for suppliers and production search for the North America territories. The range of services includes online order placement, view and download of various figures, thousands of catalogues and suppliers’ web-sites.
Worldpages.com –
This is the internet directory and ‘yellow pages’ where the lists of Canadian and U.S. companies is represented, and where there are links with more than 350 international directories.
Catalogues
The catalogues of well-known sources of supplies covering the most important materials, which make an interest for company, should be placed in a well-operated purchase and supply service. The practical use of catalogues depends, first of all, on the way of representing the information, ease of use and frequency and range of use. Nowadays, the electronic catalogues are being used more and more often.
Some examples of electronic catalogues:
UBC-group – Ukrainian producer of cold storage boxes, cooling devices and curtain-tent roofed production:
GEA-group – biggest German supplier of technological equipment for the beer-making industry:
Barth-HaasGroup – world leader of hop plant and hop products supplies:
Festo Group – world leader in pneumatics:
Dobroe Delo (Act of kindness) 2003 – catalogue of Ukrainian big producers of POS-materials made of plastic:
Comfortable use of the catalogue is determined by the way of index-linking and placement of information. Index linking should be conducted depending suppliers’ names and products. It should be clear, understandable and certain.
Trade magazines
Trade magazines represent one more useful information source concerning potential suppliers. These magazines are used for: 1) receiving of general information from the articles, for instance, about new products, alternate materials or information about suppliers and their staff; 2) constant detailed observation of advertisement materials in order to be aware of all the offers.
Trade directory
This is one more information source. They are essentially different in terms of information content and use, so they should be used quite carefully. Trade registries or trade directories are the lists of top producers mentioning their addresses, number of branch offices, associated structures, and products and, in some cases, their financial status or their position in the economic center. They also contain the list of trading names of a product on market giving its producers’ names, lists of raw materials and consumables, equipment and other types of production; name and placement of available producing sources of supplies are given below every position.
Salespersons
They might be one of the most valuable information sources, as they are able to give information upon supplies sources, types of product and general information concerning trade. In this case a purchase official should take the same decision: to balance the demands of co-operation with salespersons with other obligations and restrictive guidelines. It is certainly important to settle good fellowship with suppliers, which takes its beginning from amiability, politeness, mutual frankness during the talks with suppliers’ salespersons. After a conversation takes place, all the information should be written down so that it was easy and useful for work with.
Visiting suppliers
Some supply managers believe that visiting the suppliers is notably useful when there are no difficult moments to be discussed. Supply manager may meet the managers of higher rank who are responsible for sorting out some complaints. This kind of visits let improve the relations between all the levels of management executives and can be quite informative for customers concerning future plans of a supplier.
As an experience says, the best results might be achieved thanks to: 1) preliminary development of general scheme of collecting all the necessary information; 2) preliminary collection of all existing information, both general and particular, concerning the company being interesting for a customer in terms of its opportunities; 3) preparation of detailed report about the results and information received after visiting.
Recommendations
It happens quite often that customers include the request for recommendations into their offers. In order
to get really useful information, the main parameters of upcoming communication should be created by interviewer.
First of all, this person should make sure that the recommendation reference says about a company of quite the same size and the same goals. Secondly, the interviewer should find those company members who are aware of supplier functioning index straight from the source. Besides, the asked questions should be open type. It makes a person describe supplier functioning index in the process f communication, and the relations with them in detail.
So, we have reviewed various information source concerning suppliers. I hope that the audience of our web-site will find the given information useful. As for the author of the article, judging from my experience, complex use of the considered sources is reasonable in order to lower the risk. My recommendation is to use the electronic catalogues, trade directories, recommendations and salespersons’ information.
