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New to shipping procurement or need a refresher? Take some time to review the terms and solutions that will achieve your company goals!
Regardless of what level of experience you have in procurement, there’s always something new and different to learn. Constantly learning and evolving is the key to transforming your company. Let’s dive in!
Firstly, what do you think procurement’s role in supply chain logistics is?
Role of Shipping Procurement in Supply Chain Logistics
When you work in procurement for a company, you’re finding the best resources from vendors and suppliers. As part of the business process, procurement flows into supply chain. The supply chain management aspect handles the transformation of materials into products and the distribution of the products to customers.
It can be overwhelming to manage it all because of the many moving parts to procurement. Tasks that fall under procurement include financing purchases, managing inventory, and conducting cost-benefit analysis. All these tasks contribute to setting your company up for success!
Procurement and supply chain management goes hand in hand to support the company’s overall shipping process. It’s up to the procurement team to kick start the supply chain process and keep it running!
10 Shipping Terms Procurement Professionals Should Know
Every procurement professional should know the following shipping terms to understand the supply process. You may come across these terms on day-to-day procurement documents, like contracts or guidelines, and within conversation with your procurement team.
- Bill of Lading: A written receipt or contract the carrier must give that shows a list of goods delivered to it for transportation and enables a shipper to collect for a shipment prior to reaching the destination
- Blanket Order: A contract under which a vendor agrees to provide goods and/or services on a purchase-on-demand basis
- Cooperative Purchasing: Combining requirements of two or more governmental units to obtain the benefits of volume purchases and/or to reduce in administrative expenses
- Escalation Clause: A contract provision that permits the adjustment of contract prices by an amount or percent if certain specified contingencies occur, like changes in vendor’s raw material costs
- Life Cycle Costing: A procurement evaluation technique that designates the total cost of acquisition, operation, maintenance, and disposal of the terms acquired
- Model Procurement Code (MBC): A publication approved by the American Bar association that sets procurement statutory principles and policy guidelines for ethical standards, managing procurement for public purposes, and remedies for contract resolutions
- Point of Origin: The location where a shipment received by a transportation line from the shipper
- Qualified Products Model (QPL): A list of products that are tested in advance of procurement to determine which suppliers comply with the specification requirements; also referred to as an “approved brands list”
- Should Cost Model: A documented calculation of an estimated price that you create by researching all profit margins, material, labor, and overhead costs that apply to an item; usable in contract negotiations with supplier
- Uniform Commercial Code (UCC): A comprehensive modernization of various statutes relating to commercial transactions
If you’re new to procurement, some or most of these terms are probably unfamiliar to you. If you’re not, did you know all these listed terms?
3 Shipping Solutions for Procurement Best Practices
In today’s experience economy with plenty of competitors, you need transform your business to reach higher heights. Adopt strategies to best deliver better value for your customers. Strategies that help businesses succeed vary from company to company, but there are some best practices that help push companies to the forefront of their industry.
Shipping solutions and modules are great tools to drive these best practices to the next level. Consider implementing shipping solutions to automate your supply chain processes. With automation, you’ll save valuable time to allocate into other business functions. Let’s dig in!
Know the Ins & Outs of Your Freight Spending
Knowledge is power, and it’s incredibly important for you to thoroughly understand your spend category to manage it properly and efficiently. Keeping records and being prepared is vital for procurement.
Within the supply chain process, manually conducting freight audits and tracking freight charges take up a lot of time that could be spent on other areas that need more attention. Consider outsourcing freight auditing to a solution like AuditERP that is most capable to meet your business requirements and your projected growth needs. With a freight auditing solution, its analytic capabilities can help identify cost-reducing opportunities.
Optimize Your Warehouse Inventory
All companies look for ways to improve their bottom lines and, therefore, they constantly review their inventory and aim to maintain optimal levels. It’s a balancing game between costs of holding inventory and enough inventory for customers. Poor planning can directly cause inventory levels being off balance with business needs.
Ensure optimal inventory levels with a warehouse management solution. With an inventory control solution, your business can perform accurate demand planning and forecasting to minimize shortages and high inventory levels.
Manage Suppliers Efficiently
A very important aspect of procurement is maintaining great relationships with your company’s suppliers and vendors. The first step to building relationships is ensuring constant and transparent communication. Therefore, it’s integral that the communication flow between you and your suppliers is seamless.
Collaborate on a supplier portal solution to achieve visibility on transaction with suppliers and vendors. A communication platform can streamline the process flow and allows companies to track all shipping events as updated by the supplier. Save time and money with an easy supplier portal!
What solutions are you using to support your company’s procurement strategy?