From one of our case studies, we have picked a choice reminder from yester-year on how it happened that one of our clients and the journey to their procurement resulted in a lifelong lesson.

The lesson learnt; it is never too late to switch suppliers, if the need for lead time is pressing, and urgent.

We searched and we found!
Quite fortuitously, the new supplier proved a good fit, and so began new beginnings between the client and the merchant. Read below to see how the case study unfurled.

A potential client approached us when their company split into three. All of them were operating in one market, making them competitors. One of the two “new” competitors swiftly secured an exclusive deal with their prior manufacturer to produce and supply them with a popular product.

Businesses go through significant events during their lifetime – that’s just the nature of the industry. It could be that the company was sold or failed. Still, relaunching it from scratch is usually difficult, especially if everyone goes their separate ways and you must do it alone. You end up having to be the “Jack of all trades,” handling manufacturers, suppliers, invoices, accounting, payroll, staff, customers and more.

Under such conditions, it can be relatively easy to lose both your manufacturers and customers. And the competition isn’t far behind to swoop them along. After all, your competitor has the necessary supply lines to deliver the product that your consumers so desperately want.

What options do you have? Your competition now has your manufacturer and is insisting that you make them your supplier. You become disadvantaged in two ways. First is in price; sooner or later, your competitor will approach your customers directly and undermine your pricing. The second disadvantage is that being your competitor’s customer hardly ever works out since you’re making your market position weaker while simultaneously strengthening theirs.

The client made their position clearly known and we were briefed on what they needed us to do. Mainly, the client wanted us to find another quality manufacturer capable of short lead times. We were more than happy to oblige right away.

Luckily, we understood the client’s requirements well and tapped into our network of producers that we had built up throughout the years. Soon enough, we managed to link the client with a high-quality manufacturer.

 

To top that off, through our negotiation skills, we managed to reduce the production costs by 50% compared to the previous producer, with a lead time of 16 weeks.