Week 10 Discussion Board
Weekly Discussion Question – (25 points)
Situation:
For this discussion question, you are going to be reflecting on the steps that modern businesses must take when evaluating a supplier. This is important because you must understand this process as a mechanism for preparing Highpoint Barnie to look back at the logistical decisions they made in preparation for upcoming fiscal quarters. For this discussion question, you are going to understand the concept and with our activities, you will have an opportunity to work with Highpoint Barnie in giving a closer consideration to the issues at hand. Make sure in your definition that you are clear about the evaluation process based on both what is written in the book and its application with Highpoint Barnie.
Week 10 Discussion
Suppliers are an important part of the organization because they provide the goods and services to the organization with the organization running properly and efficiently as well. But the supplier also needs to be evaluated so that it can be known whether the goods provided by them are good or not and whether the supplier is providing the ordered products or not. The relationships with suppliers and vendors are important business partnerships (Durmić, 2019, p.95). The evaluation of the supplier is done so that it can be easy to understand the supplier and to make the decision whether the particular supplier is good and reliable for the organization or not and likewise the decision is to be taken as well.
There are various steps that modern businesses must take when evaluating a supplier and some of them are stated below-
The competency should be checked– One of the most common complaints about suppliers is that their competency falls short of what they initially advertised. An easy way to check for competency is to find out what past customers have to say about the prospective supplier’s service. Though users post reviews on many online platforms, sometimes a supplier is too small to have a reliable collection of reviews. In this case, do your research by contacting previous and current clients. Through the competency review of the supplier, it can be easier to understand whether the supplier is good or not and whether the contract can be given to him or not. The evaluation can be done by the review provided to the supplier as well.
The capacity matches the needs– Suppliers are there to make money too, leading them to sometimes take on new projects without the proper capacity to support their commitments. So one must make sure that the supplier to which they are hiring or giving the contract can complete the project or the work within the provided period or not (Pinnington, Benstead & Meehan, 2022, p.5). The capacity should always to known whether the supplier will able to complete the task in the provided time limit or not because if these factors are not known then it can have led to the non-completion of the work.
The quality of the service– A low price often means low quality. If a lower-quality product better suits your needs, a cheaper supplier makes sense. A low-quality, inexpensive supplier that can deliver products regularly and efficiently still offers a high quality of service relative to price. It should be made clear that the quality of the work which was provided should be good and with a reasonable price as well. Quality is the main aspect that needs to be maintained at work. If the quality is good, then the outcome of the product will be also good. So quality should always be the priority for goods purchasing.
To establish performance indicators– Using key performance indicators (KPIs) is an excellent way to evaluate suppliers. Common supplier KPIs include company size, capacity, certifications, management systems, and financial integrity (Badi & Pamucar, 2020, p.45). The work of the supplier is an integral part of the organization so the performance indicator should be set to how the supplier is working and which part he is more focusing. With the performance of the supplier, the decision can be made as to whether the supplier is doing good work or not or whether the company needs to change the supplier as well.
Ensure that the supplier controls its supply chain– It is unlikely that consumers unhappy with a poorly made product or shipping delays will look past your company to assign blame. This thing becomes even more complicated when your supplier doesn’t fully control their supply chain. Suppliers with control, as opposed to those a third party manages, will be much easier to hold accountable for poor service.
So it can be said that these are the common things that take place and to evaluate the supplier one needs to get focused on these things and take the steps accordingly so that the work can be performed properly without any of the issues.
References
Badi, I., & Pamucar, D. (2020). Supplier selection for steelmaking company by using combined Grey-MARCOS methods. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 3(2), 37-48.
Durmić, E. (2019). Evaluation of criteria for sustainable supplier selection using the FUCOM method. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 2(1), 91-107.
Pennington, B., Benstead, A., & Meehan, J. (2022). Transparency in Supply Chains (TISC): Assessing and Improving the Quality of Modern Slavery Statements. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-18.
