Global supply chain disruption, increasing shipping costs and high inflation rates have led to businesses revisiting existing contracts and seeking better deals. This in turn has led to record levels of tenders and pricing requests received by logistics contractors.
Contractors’ sales and solution design teams have a finite capacity to respond to these requests and are understandably becoming more selective regarding where to focus their resources. They are focusing on new business opportunities that they believe they can win and declining those they believe are benchmarking or are financially unsustainable. Contractors always have the option of not working for you!
Practical steps you can take to ensure good contractor engagement includes:
- Pre-qualification of potential contractors to ensure that you are only engaging with those with a realistic chance of winning the work
- Tell them why you’re running the tender and what would make you choose them.
- A clear statement of requirements with no hidden surprises or unreasonable terms
- A detailed and unambiguous data set that makes it easy to respond to
- Personal engagement with contractors. If you’re using sourcing portals at least engage with potential contractors on a personal level as well
- Keeping lines of communication open and a flexible approach to answering questions
- Helping contractors submit the best proposal to benefit you – query anything which looks like it might be wrong. Demonstrate you are seeking a collaborative relationship.
- Keeping an open mind to alternative approaches. Encourage them to tell you if they think you would get more value from a different approach
- Respect for the incumbent contractor – they are likely to know far more about your business than others in the process, so care needs to be taken that this does not disadvantage them or show other respondents in a falsely favorable position
- Complete honesty and integrity throughout the process – not everyone can win, so take the time to provide honest feedback so they can see exactly why they were unsuccessful against the winning contractor
Davies & Robson has extensive experience of helping businesses source logistics contractors across all industries, with terms that are fair and agreeable to both parties. Our collaborative approach has resulted in customers contracting with the right suppliers and we pride ourselves on our respectful relationships with providers of logistics services.
If you would like to know how we could help your business please call Davies & Robson for an informal discussion on 01327 349090 .
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