Skilled Professionals Global Product Sourcing

About product sourcing, but maybe you don't know exactly what it means. In this article, we are talking about what product sourcing is and how it can benefit your company.

If you are a part of a business, you are aware of the fact that any firm has different departments, such as Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Legal, IT or Accounting. Many companies have outsourced some of these departments, either to save money or to add more skilled professionals to their teams.

Recently, a new trend has appeared, a trend called product sourcing. Properly doing product sourcing, especially when we are talking about global product sourcing, is a quite difficult task. To properly fulfill it, you need a passionate specialist, that has the appropriate skills and knowledge, as well as a wide network of collaborating suppliers. Sourcing basically means searching and identifying the best sources of products and services that your company needs and negotiating a favorable contract with those sources.

Since sourcing is a rather new concept, many people don't know the difference between sourcing and procurement. You might think that there are the same thing, but sourcing is only a part of the entire procurement process, which consists of a collection of processes, not only buying the needed product and services.

Why do so many businesses seek the services of sourcing companies? For the same to reasons we mentioned before to be responsible for the outsourcing of other company departments (HR, Finance, 

Accounting). The first reason that determines businesses to surrender the responsibility of sourcing to third parties is saving money. By cutting a whole sourcing department, you reduce the headcount of your business, thus paying less money for wages and related activities. However, most companies choose to get help with their sourcing due to the fact they realize which are their limitations. 

They come to realize that they do not have enough experience, knowledge and relationships in the industry to achieve the results they desire. By giving this tasks to a third party, they achieve a better understanding of the methods, steps and processes involved in sourcing. This way, no more mistakes are made, deadlines are respected and things run smoothly from one end to another.

Sourcing companies have something your company probably doesn't have. In their years of experience in the field, they have built relationships, based on trust and mutual respect, with different suppliers all around the world. Even when looking for a new supplier, they will know which are the signals of a trustworthy supplier, as well as the price ranges and ascending or descending trends on the market. 

If you have reached the conclusion that you need such a service, don't hesitate to go online and do a simple search. You will find many companies that offer sourcing, procurement and logistics services, but to make sure that you choose the right one.

Global Network And Manufacturing Businesses

Around thirty five years ago China's transformation towards being the world's supermarket began. Back then as today it was possible to command almost any price but finding the right factory with the right quality procedures and adequate testing facilities was and is a whole different ball game.

As the world has become ever more globalized so margins have become ever more squeezed and product prices ever more elastic. The rush to take advantage of world prices offered by China, India (and more recently the BRIC countries) is something akin to the California gold rush.

In 2013 100s, if not thousands, of businesses have taken the leap and moved all or most of their manufacturing overseas. Up and down the country purchasing managers and buyers are slapping each other on the back at the cost savings they have gained, or at least think they have gained.

 

Take a walk down the hall to quality or supply and the story may not be so rosy. One may even witness the air turn blue as the quality guy inspects yet another reject, trusted spectrometer in hand. All was well at sample stage so what went wrong. Well self regulation never did and never will work. Quality teams, on the ground in the manufacturing country, carrying out regular in process inspections, is essential to ensuring quality is consistent.

Setting up an office in the host country is one option but the cost and timescales for doing so will be prohibitive to anything but log term cost savings. In the short to medium term increased costs and reduced margins are the more likely outcome.

However a network of highly vetted factories, regularly inspected by qualified engineers, can be the answer. Sourcing high quality products at world prices is the modern day global challenge.

The challenge is not just a global one but also an internal one that can very easily lid to organizational conflict, if not handled correctly. In many companies purchasing, accounts and logistics work in splendid isolation. All working according to their own KPI's with no over reaching solution for tracking project costs.The result is the supply chain becomes fragmented.

 

What is needed is someone with an eye on everything and a foot in every camp. Often this challenging role is left to the hapless product manager, who cuts his own throat no matter what decision he makes and so makes non. The product manager becomes a professional politician of such cunning as to put Downing Street to shame. So the solution becomes to outsource everything to a third party.

Maxim Industries Ltd use an established network of factories around the world to source products, components and sub assemblies for manufacturing businesses across Europe and the USA. With ISO accredited quality procedures in place.