Who should drive the buying/selling process?
Scott Bernier
Supply Chain Fundamentals| 10 years Electrical Industry| Multi-Million Dollar Negotiations
Who would be best to drive the buying/selling process - the buying organization or the selling organization? What are the pros and cons for each?
As someone who has been in supply chain for over 20 years now (crazy right!), I have been through several situations where my organization needed a particular good or service and the process was delivered through an RFP. I have also been through the sales driven process where I was engaged early by the selling organization trying to drive value in my organization through potential increase in revenues or cost savings. Both have merit.
I feel both add value to the selling process and perhaps both can hinder the process depending on what the customer ultimately needs and the selling organization is able to deliver.
Where the customer does not know what is out there, they can issue an RFI and hope to find the right vendor(s) to deliver but many times these are poorly answered by the selling organizations because of the poor conversion. Where the customer knows exactly what they want, an RFQ or RFP may be a somewhat better option but still has the ability to lack excellent responses due to lack of innovation or imagination by part of the selling organization. However, if the buying organization has strong suppliers and a collaborative relationship, these methods can often drive significant value in lower pricing and best overall costs.
Where the selling organization is able to provide something unique and new in the market, it can be difficult to translate these into sales from customers who only buy using the RFx model. How can they answer a question to a problem their potential customer doesn't know they have. They need to drive the sales process and work closely with the buying organization to be best able to identify potential problems and deliver the good or service that best answers that problem.
The selling process include prospecting, preparation, approach, presentation, handling objections, closing and follow-up. In contract, the buying process is problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, purchase, and post-purchase evaluation. These can be separate or part of the overall same process.
What is your experience? How can buying and selling organizations best get together for mutual benefit. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
CEO & Founder of Castle Negotiations Helping 70,000+ Professionals In 25 Countries Become Indispensable With Harvard-Trained Negotiation Framework
7yWell said. And yes, I thinks its key that both procurement and the supplier have a system to keep in touch with ALL stakeholders involved in any purchase. A what'sapp group, list serve, whatever is most user friendly. Then keeping in touch with all stakeholders during the entire process will reveal true interests, potential issues, creative solutions, etc.. through the entire lifecycle of a sale. Once the communication system is in place it will save so much time and actualize hidden potential.
Admininstrator at AGA Benefit Solutions
7yProcurement needs to understand the needs and specs from the organization initiating the request, when they prepare the RFP. I had mechanical engineer and tooling comes back and challenge the original design or specs. And sometimes this is not easy to explain to someone non technical. I bring the technical team together between the two companies to come up with a solution by modifying the original design, or change materials or change manufacturing process.