With the advent of ISO Standards, the relationship between suppliers and buyers is changing. Without a doubt, quality is a concept appreciated over price and obviously when it comes to quality, it is the concept of services.
This article deals with the professional buyer, the one whose decision parameters consider objectively precise elements to decide a purchase, among which the price is the last thing seen, but who, once all the other important variables for a good purchase are approved, are still decided by price.
Among the serious suppliers of the market, in any area, buyers of little expertise are considered those who incur any of the following actions:
Finish off the price, which calls into question the transparency of the buyer and obviously the effect over time is that only those suppliers that are capable of sustaining extremely low prices persist, which damages quality and generates great problems for the buyer whose prestige is affected. he sees run-down in his own business as among serious suppliers who do not wish to work with this type of buyer.
Award a purchase order by word of mouth and then, without just cause, change your mind. This is the mistake of a beginner in buying, who is not able to keep his word (which is very serious from a relational point of view), or is not supported by his direct boss, which makes him in the eyes of a serious supplier into a simple shopping assistant with no real resolving power.
Work asking for commission from the supplier or accepting commission from the supplier. This means “diverting funds from their own company”, since the funds to finance this procedure will come from the buyer's company, which is not to the taste of any general manager since it represents a vice that distorts the market and conditions the purchase on the subject who holds the position of buyer.
Work on the purchase as specific events, ignoring in fact or due to ignorance of the enormous benefits that the alliance with suppliers brings to certain projects and the supplier's specialization in their needs, whose stabilized satisfaction leads to economies of scale, to an enhancement of the commercial relationship and access to special treatment derived from the confidence to face the buyer's needs as the supplier's own.
It is also a first time to give a supplier to understand that there are more suppliers of a certain product since that is a premise of the free market and is not the point of a commercial relationship, but quite the opposite. It is about establishing lasting relationships based on mutual trust, customer service and quality stabilization.
The world is accelerating towards professional purchasing framed by purchasing policies that guarantee equality to serious suppliers and the presence of more and more professionals from university disciplines in the procurement position who know how to value other variables in addition to price.
The ISO standard is causing both supplier and buyer companies to make their sales and purchasing policies explicit, thus favoring a serious business relationship, based on trust and guaranteeing that the supplier can invest direct marketing resources (seller, access to quotes and equality in competition) increasingly reliable.
Many buyers are often fired from their jobs for detecting things that harm them at the time of problems in the delivery of a service by the provider. When there are problems that affect the interests of the buyer company, then it is time to review how the person who holds the position of buyer is doing things. There are errors that are expensive, and often when it has been poorly decided on the price, avoiding analyzing other variables that ensure that the supply will be produced at the level of what the buying company requires.
