What Is Procurement Supply Chain Management?

Helping Your Company Leverage Supply Chain Expertise

Procurement is rarely as simple as placing orders. There are countless strategies and best practices involved in the buying process. When managed correctly, your business can satisfy customers and budgets. But what is procurement supply chain management and how can it help you save money on purchasing?

An Overview of Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management services can mean different things to different procurement professionals. But as a general term, this phrase means working with an individual or team that can help you optimize your procurement. Supply chain management strategies are designed to accomplish a variety of goals, including:

• Driving cost savings
• Identifying high-quality products and services
• Building efficiencies throughout the supply chain

Whether your supply chain management support comes from a partner group purchasing organization, an in-house procurement team, or both, you’ll want to make sure that you’re dedicating resources to optimizing buying.

Key Supply Chain Strategies

When it comes to optimizing your supply chain, it’s difficult to know where to start. There are many factors that come into play with procurement, from supplier relationships to economic changes to product availability. Foodbuy Foodservice recommends starting with these three areas.

1. Process Optimization

One of the first steps to more functional and efficient supply chain, is streamlining your buying processes. There are many ways to accomplish this. Many operators work with a group purchasing organization (GPO) to identify opportunities.

A GPO can streamline your processes by managing some of the more time-consuming parts of procurement for you. For example, GPOs have strong existing relationships with a wide variety of suppliers and distributors. They can take some of the stress of vendor management off your plate by monitoring program and product changes on your behalf. Plus, they can identify new savings opportunities so that you don’t have to spend hours agonizing over your buying data.

2. Buying Transparency

Knowing where you’re spending your budget is important to making optimal purchasing decisions. That’s why buying transparency in an important focus for foodservice operators.

One of the ways that you can improve your transparency into your spend is through data analytics and eProcurement technology. Solutions like MPower and iTrade Insights provide easy-to-access dashboards that outline your current spend and allow you to generate helpful reports.

Additionally, many operators want visibility into distribution processes and stocking. Some purchasing partners like Foodbuy Foodservice offer distribution management resources, including distributor inventory management. This service involves tracking the availability of critical business items at your distribution centers. That means that you know where your products are when you need them.

3. Custom Solutions

A third focus for many operators is finding custom solutions for their menuing and business needs. That’s where custom contracting services come in. Some purchasing partners can help you identify unique sourcing programs that will fit your more niche needs. This can involve identifying lesser-known suppliers or finding rare specialty ingredients.

Foodbuy Foodservice offers this service to our supply chain management clients, allowing them to secure competitive prices on products and services that fit their unique needs.

How to Get Started

What is procurement supply chain management? It’s the key to better buying processes. That’s why Foodbuy Foodservice offers a suite of services for our supply chain management clients.

When you sign on for this partnership level, you gain access to distributor inventory management services, custom contracting support, and iTrade Insights – our supply chain and contract management software. All of this supplements our extraordinary group purchasing benefits.

Fill out our supply chain management client interest form today to learn more.