What is the most crucial part of purchasing in today's dynamic market scenario?
The most crucial part for a purchaser in today’s market scenario is to maintain the quality without effecting the bottom line. For that the purchaser need to be significantly updated with the alternatives available in the market.
What vendor compliance systems did you initiate for cost savings?
Looking at the inflation in the market, cost saving is a big question mark now. But at the same time the manufacturing industry is more focused on products with more energy efficient, long life and more technically advanced products. Hence the products with advance technologies are given preference which in long term turn out to be most cost effective.
How do you identify high risk vendors? What are the various measure and procedures introduced to deal with this?
In the hotel you will find so may services being provided by the vendors which are of high-risk nature, be it the maintenance of servers, lifts, boilers, generators etc. To avoid any such risk in maintaining these services, it is always preferred to have maintenance contracts directly with the OEM rather than with the sub-dealers or any freelancers. Other than this in hospitality the high-risk vendors are those who supply us fresh, frozen and ready to eat products. The guidelines are set by the FSSAI in terms of temperature, stocking and supplying of such products. The vendor supplying such category of products are being audited by the hotels from time to time to ensure that the vendors maintain the hygiene and other safety parameters set by the FSSAI.
How do you train your team to follow procedures for smooth coordination in supply chain management?
By doing regular market surveys and visits to the production units of different category of vendors, enables a purchaser to better understand the actual process and the lead time to produce and manufacture a product. This really helps us to pre-requisite our requirement for a timely and smooth coordination in running the operations.
How has the domain of purchase changed over the years? Do the purchase managers have to develop certain skills today?
With time, the industry has grown, and the domain of a Purchase Manager has also become wider. Nowadays a Purchase Manager has to be multi skilled and very much updated with the new technologies coming in the market so frequent. As a Purchase Manager he/she should talk like an engineer when buying a plant room machinery, may be like a chef when buying food items and like an interior designer when buying for rooms division and so on … and above all a good finance guy, where he keeps the track of the budget wherein, he is bound to be within.
