"The survey shows that large companies handle supplier management much more professionally than small and medium-sized businesses. That may result in clear competitive disadvantages for small and medium-sized companies", says Gerd Kerkhoff, Managing Director of the consultancy Kerkhoff Consulting specializing in purchasing optimization and supply chain management. "Controlling suppliers still remains the primary job of every purchasing department. Yet, the results obtained might actually bring up the question as to what the defined objective really is for one-third of the purchasing departments in small and medium-sized companies."
Even more dramatic is the difference in risk management. Just 14 percent of the enterprises with a workforce of fewer than 250 persons have a risk management system in purchasing. After all, almost half (47 percent) of the large companies with more than 1,000 employees have set up such a system.
"The disaster in Japan is currently threatening supply chains the world over", says Kerkhoff. "It will now be easier to change over to alternative suppliers for those companies which also anticipated disaster scenarios in a risk management system and had developed solution models prior to the beginning of a crisis. In contrast, companies that hadn't cared about it will now find alternative suppliers quickly only with great expenditures time-wise and thus cost-intensive."
When it comes to tying the purchasing department into their production areas, both small or medium-sized businesses and the major industry are about in the same condition: 65 percent created interfaces with production. It's different with regard to product development: Half the companies with more than 1,000 employees already has "strong" or "very strong" links between the purchasing department and the development of products. But only one-third of the companies with fewer than 250 employees have done so.
On average, only every fifth company is using product cost calculation and value analysis as a modern purchasing tool. By means of this technology, companies are enabled to estimate the exact manufacturing prices of their goods procured; they can thus conduct much more forceful supplier negotiations. Here again, there is a clear difference between large and small: Just 13 percent of the small and medium-sized companies have a cost breakdown tool while it's about one-third with large-sized companies.
"Large sized companies leave smaller medium-sized companies far behind in terms of professionalism", says Gerd Kerkhoff. "But the big ones also have a clear need to catch up: Two things should be alarming – only half of them have a risk management system; and the much too insufficient integration of the purchasing department into internal decision-making processes. The one-third of the companies already working with the modern tool of product cost calculation is now already far ahead of the competition. The others must improve a lot and fast so as not to drop out of the race."
Media contact
Kerkhoff Consulting GmbH
Christian Pfeiffer
Partner, Head of Corporate Communications
Tel.: +49 (0)211 / 62 180 61- 0
c.pfeiffer(at)kerkhoff-consulting.com |
