All available business templates

Why complete a Supplier Audit

Sample Site Audit Forms

The benefits of a site supplier audit are many. Having assurances in respect to supply, environmental compliance, safety standards and quality measures are the primary reasons we complete them. And finding the right suppliers has never been more important than today. The global recession has added additional pressures on the very survival of many companies.

How do you know that your supplier is capable of meeting their obligations or commitments? You do so by completing a site audit of their production facilities. This is often part of a buyers due diligence with large dollar spend and should be an exercised practice in your buyer / supplier relationship. Note, not every vendor you do business with warrants a site audit. Site audits can be costly when you factor in travel to the manufacturer’s facility and can be time consuming so be strategic and target vendors which are integral to your supply chain.

A physical audit is the best way to gather reliable information about your supplier’s business practices, capabilities, competitiveness, cost drivers, safety standards and service culture. From these audits you can (more…)

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Spend Analysis

Part 1 – Buyers Guide to Cost Savings

As a Buyer or Purchasing Professional you should be evaluating your spend. What does this involve and how does it benefit my organization to complete a spend analysis? Basically, you are reviewing how your organization spends its operating budget or what makes up costs. To do this, one could run a historical report from your purchasing software system. It might allow you to drill down and report the top 20 or 30 vendors and how much money your company spent with them in the last 12 months. Better yet if it could provide the commodity or description of the spend then you are off to the races. If Purchasing cannot directly pull this data from a software program, your next best option is to approach the accounting department. They should be able to give you a list of the top vendors A/P sends payment to.

Once you have your list of the top 20% of your vendors in relation to how much money you spend with them annually we are fairly certain you are going to see that this list likely represents close to 80% of your operating budget. Yes the 80/20 rule will apply.  Why focus on the top 20%, well there are only so many hours in the day and as a buyer you need to focus your efforts on where you are going to make the biggest impact. Spending hours on toilet paper contracts to save $10.00 might not be the best way of utilizing your time.

Cost conscious business owners will (more…)

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RFP Template – Software

9 Sections covered in our Sample RFP for Software

There are many variations of RFP Templates available in the on-line marketplace, in fact there are about as many sample RFP Templates as there are subjects. For every type of material or service which is offered, or which you can imagine, someone has likely issued or created a request for proposal for it. RFP Templates.org has developed many templates from years of actual working experience in the materials management field and we understand how much fun it is to generate a RFP from scratch.

RFP #45 is a version or a sample template used for the procurement of custom software.

Section 1 – Instructions to Vendors on how and when to respond to your proposal. A must in any request for proposal document.

Project timetable which identifies the key dates or schedule of events as to how you the Buyer anticipate they will unfold.. Issue date, RFP required by date, vendor meeting dates, award, delivery of software, testing period and implementation. A timeline is important for both parties as it will help ensure it remains on time and on track.

Section 2 – Firm Overview – will allow bidders to understand more about the Buyers background, key business drivers and how the software will function within the company environment. (more…)

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