You don’t need me to tell you that the procurement process is quite involved, and includes a ton of moving parts.
You also don’t need me to tell you that streamlining your procurement processes is a vital part of enabling your organization to run like a finely-tuned machine.
To make this happen, of course, you need to know as much as you possibly can about all aspects of the process – on both your company’s side, as well as your suppliers’.
In this article, we’re going to explain how you can utilize surveys to easily gather this information and use it to pinpoint specific ways in which you can immediately begin improving your procurement processes.
Surveying Your Employees and Suppliers to Improve Procurement Processes
Creating surveys to be filled out by both your employees and your suppliers is an incredibly effective way to gain a well-rounded understanding of all that goes into the procurement process.
Whether your goal is to better equip and enable your ground-level employees or to learn more about how your suppliers operate (and, in turn, tailor your company’s operations accordingly), the data you glean via surveys can be the catalyst that springboards you toward these goals.
Surveying Your Employees
Simply put:
Your employees are your best resource for learning about what’s working – and what isn’t – with regard to your procurement process. By developing surveys for your employees focused on your procurement process, you can gather the necessary information in a structured manner that ultimately will enable you to create an action plan for improving your overall operations.
Surveying your employees allows you to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your individual workers – as well as your procurement team as a whole. In turn, you can focus on developing additional training in the necessary areas – while also building on your team’s strengths, as well.
This insight can also allow you to see where your employees may need more structure – or more autonomy, as the case may be. For example, an employee’s responses may reflect that they discovered an innovative way of researching and comparing potential suppliers, but they were unsure of whether or not to implement this strategy (at the risk of going against protocol).
Similarly, your employees’ responses may uncover a need for additional technology to help your procurement team achieve their goals more effectively. This may mean investing in new software for your team to leverage, or it may mean investing in additional training to allow your team to get the most out of the tools they currently have access to.
By surveying your procurement team, you stand to gain valuable insight into the details of your organization’s procurement processes. At the very least, the data you glean from these surveys will allow you to pinpoint areas of weakness that require your immediate attention – in turn allowing you to effectively allocate the proper time, money, and other resources into improving these areas.
Surveying Potential Suppliers
When deciding on a supplier to work with, you naturally want to go with the company that proves to be the most reliable of your options.
While there are a number of ways to research your potential suppliers, perhaps one of the simplest ways to do so is to request that they fill out a survey regarding their company’s operations and procedures.
Above all else, you’ll want to gauge just how the organization approaches the supplier-client relationship. To do so, you might ask questions regarding communication and customer service and support after a deal has been agreed upon. This will help you determine which suppliers truly care about the partnership, and which are merely interested in making sales.
You’ll also want to gauge your potential supplier’s ability to fulfill their end of the agreement, both immediately and as time goes on. To this end, your survey should include questions revolving around the supplier’s inventory management procedures, as well as their risk management and mitigation protocol.
Lastly, you can ask potential suppliers to provide information regarding the technology and tools they use throughout their organization – in turn determining whether a specific candidate operates from a progressive standpoint or a more traditional perspective. Though not always the case, the more forward-thinking the supplier, the more likely it is that they’ll be able to provide for your needs as your relationship continues to grow.
Wrapping Up
Essentially, your main goal for delivering surveys to your procurement team and your potential suppliers is to better understand the procurement process from a ground-level perspective. In turn, you’ll be in a better position to begin smoothing out certain points of friction, and to streamline the overall process – ensuring that both sides of the procurement process are able to operate at their maximum capacity. Would like to know more about surveys and how they can help your business? Check out Fieldboom’s blog for more useful information.
