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All organizations have to buy things - Equipment, Services, or Supplies;
but some don't recognize the savings
available by buying the right product at the right price. Proper product research, price hunting
and negotiation takes experience, information, and time.
Often, it doesn't pay to maintain staff for such a sporadic
activity. T-21 allows you to have professional Purchasing services, whenever you need them; when you don't, your work costs drop to
zero.
Here's a T-21 example of one organization's use of Purchasing
services:
NOT-FOR-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION.
Problem.
A medium-sized, not-for-profit agency has only a small,
fixed office staff that is barely able to handle the routine
workload. Periodic buying of equipment and supplies poses a
problem. The office manager commented, "We're so
frazzled here - we usually have to grab the first thing we see
and get back to work. I've looked back and wished we could
have made
a lot of purchases over again because I know we overpaid for
some things. Sometimes, we end up with
the wrong thing or a low quality product. Other
times, we got put on 'hold' forever or have made an order that didn't get shipped."
After a pause,
she continued, "A lot of our time was wasted on
tracking things, making calls, and other problems. And
looking for the best price on uncommon items took hours and
hours. So, your 'rent a Purchasing Agent' program started
me thinking."
Action.
The Team Manager (TM) said that her "rent a Purchasing Agent" characterization accurately
summarized our program. He went on to describe the T-21 Purchasing
program in more detail to the office manager - adding that,
often, suppliers knowing T-21 as a larger-volume buying agent, offer better price schedules. He noted that our Purchasing staff routinely research product and vendor
reliability and update our Databases.
The manager agreed to a six-month test of the service and
enrolled the agency in the program.
Plan.
Whenever the agency needs to purchase something (mobile phones, supplies, or special equipment), they contact their
T-21 TM, who assigns a Purchasing Technician to search for the best price-quality match.
The Technician first
queries our
Product and Vendor Databases, updates product information, and negotiates or confirms price and product availability.
The top recommendations are sent to the agency.
The agency just tells T-21
what they want and when they need it. T-21 does all the
rest. When the current need is satisfied, the work
costs for Purchasing drops to zero - until
they need help again.
Results.
As the
six-month mark for the test approached, the TM called the office
manager and she
reflected on the program, "Six months already?
Seems like last week. Anyway, I've been meaning to tell
you - this thing works for us. We spend almost no time
on buying anymore and we've had no problems. We'll
definitely keep it going."
Note: A number of manufacturers also use our Purchasing
services to locate special tools, supplies, and services.
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