In my first blog “Engage Early and Engage Often” with Suppliers we shared a bird’s eye view on benefits and challenges of early engagement. In this blog I dive deeper and see 2 main types of early engagement. Here we will discuss how procurement teams can take advantage of early engagement without putting themselves at risk of challenge from unhappy suppliers.

There are 2 main types of early engagement:-

1. One is where an organization is engaging with supplier(s) for a more significant contract to follow. Here they take responses to narrow down on a specification or advise on the nature of main procurement exercise
2. The second type of early engagement is when an organization is taking advise on new market, product, service or gathering ideas in general from not just one supplier but many suppliers or consultant or consulting body. Here the engagement is not much on commercial basis. The organization wants to get the views from the market and test ideas but not intending to pay for this. This process is easier than the first case but caution needs to be exercised. For instance, if the buyer talks privately to just handful of potential suppliers then the other suppliers, who were not involved in the early engagement process might claim that the handful suppliers received an advantage. On the similar lines talking to incumbent supplier would also be seen as discriminatory. My advice is that the contracting authorities should advertise in some way when they are looking for inputs so all the suppliers are involved in the information-exchange process.

To elaborate more on this topic Ardent Partners and Zycus are collaborating on a webinar series focused on the things that can help CPO’s get to the next level of procurement performance.

Webinar Topic : CPO Game Changer Series – Volume 1: Early Engagement

Claim your Seat to the Webinar Now

Speakers:

Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer at Ardent Partners

Richard Waugh, VP Corporate Development at Zycus, Inc.

Register Now

Key Takeaways :-

• Value & Benefits of getting sourcing teams engaged earlier in their projects without running in to problems
• The difference between serving as an order-taker or as a strategic partner

Related Reads

1. Blog – Supplier Relationship Management: A Comprehensive Guide
2. Blog – Supplier Performance Evaluation – A Quick Checklist
3. Blog – Your Guide to Supplier Network
4. Zycus Supplier Network Solution
5. Download Whitepaper – Supplier Risk And Performance Management: Best Practices For KPI Creation
6. Download Whitepaper – Supplier Performance Evaluation for Better Results