Increasing the Value of your Suppliers

There are several schools of thoughts when it comes to choosing suppliers. Supplier evaluations can help your decisions but have limitations on great potential suppliers.

One unique way that I have really enjoy is choosing a supplier that needs work. Not a company that you aren't willing to invest in but one you know has great potential. It may require a lot of up front investment but pays significant dividends is choosing an undervalued supplier. They may not be technically strong, they may have management or production issues, they may be completely new to the industry.

These companies can be diamonds in the rough!

By taking the time, investing your resources into this company, you will have several benefits.

Bring your quality team into the company to continually evaluate and make suggestions, bring your lean or continuous improvement team into looking at their processes for waste and teach them how to reduce them. Bring your supply chain into evaluate their suppliers and teach them your superior negotiation strategies, your inventory planning and work with them to develop a killer scorecard. Your supplier will be extremely grateful for developing them.

A great benefit of doing this is you know have a unique company and a competitive advantage over your competition who is using another sourcing method.

Sometimes the underdog ends up being your best ally.