Implementing a World Class Purchasing Organization

A good purchasing strategy should include a method by which vendors are measured. The evaluation process should include not only delivery performance, but track less obvious metrics such as under or over delivery, quality of items delivered and the performance of the vendor’s customer service. These metrics may not always be a measurable value, but sometimes the metric is subjective. If policy guidelines are implemented for subjective evaluation, then all vendors can be measured equally. Don’t forget to let the vendors know they are being evaluated. If they know their customers are watching them, perhaps they will raise their game.