A company’s purchasing department may have to manage a multitude of different purchases, depending on its stakeholders and the strategic choices of management.
The implementation of common procedures, respected by all stakeholders in the company, is an essential step to improve the quality of service.
This is an approach that is too often neglected, yet it allows for the dissemination of good practices and their sustainability.
Disseminating best practices
The writing and distribution of internal procedures allows deployment across an entire site or structure Good purchasing practices with internal clients. The approach is built in two stages: the first consists of taking stock of current practices (whether or not they are already officially formalized) to see if it is possible to standardize them, and above all to improve their effectiveness or, initially, perhaps simply their monitoring and compliance… Once this work is done, the second stage consists of defining the type of procedure, its use and purpose, as well as its scope: who will be the stakeholders involved, and how will you involve them in the implementation of this new tool…
The general purchasing procedure
Depending on the existing culture within the company, and the complexity of the purchasing process or internal organization, procedures can be described with varying degrees of precision and detail, or in a more or less technical manner. While there isn’t really a This standard procedure should improve the current organization and therefore reflect the operational conditions under which purchasing takes place. Thus, the procedure will contain guidelines for managing, for example:
• The purchase request (PR) from the internal client
• Sourcing, or supplier consultation
• Negotiation
• The order(s)
• Receiving
The various other procedures
In terms of quality and efficiency of service, the more procedures are written, respected, and regularly updated, the more efficient your purchasing department will be.
This allows you to set up a quality procedure a procedure on reporting, or even a Procedure for delegating purchasing commitments. More specifically, you can implement procedures tailored to each product category. operating procedures for the purchasing intranet if you have set one up, or to generate Comprehensive and usable reporting dashboards… In this area, explaining and training users is a first step, but formalizing operating procedures in dedicated documents saves time and improves efficiency in the deployment and sustainability of best practices!
Last but not least, and increasingly relevant: have you considered drafting a charter on ethics and supplier relations?
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