Here’s the thing
Regardless of the size of your company, whether you have just started with your company or are already confident in the market, you are going to need to rely on procurement.
The outcome of your procurement processes is so important that it will probably determine the future of your whole business. Think about it, if you don’t find the right supplier, if you don’t manage your supply chain effectively and don’t pay attention to your expenses and budget, the list of things that could go wrong is quite endless.
To prevent all of this you need to treat procurement as your next most valuable asset.
The good news?
We have you covered
The Introduction
Today’s guest is Kevin Leiter, COO at Burro, a company that produces autonomous vehicles meant to be used in agricultural settings. Burro is a case worth of notice for a myriad of reasons, first it comes from a very unique industry, Kevin presents it as a small manufacturer, a small manufacturer that in the last two years has seen an exponential growth not only in the number of products sold but also an expansion in the location of their customer base.
Making the right bet
Procurement operations are never free of challenges
And Kevin knows a thing or two about it, he shared with us how one of the biggest challenges their team at Burro faced was to hit the right number of vehicles designed according to what the market needed. In agriculture, for example, there is only a limited number of sale opportunities where demand levels rise, once that date has passed, the interest from the customer side drops, so it was very critical to try and come up with the right quantity available in the stock.
Selling the idea
Another challenge Kevin has found affecting especially small businesses is trying to discover a way to attract not customers, but suppliers. The kind of suppliers that you know are the best in terms of quality and performance might not necessarily be open to work with companies that don’t have a big name yet so it’s up to managers and leaders like Kevin himself to wear the hat of a salesperson just to convince a high-level supplier to consider a possible partnership.
Finding the right choice
When we asked him about what would he say was the most important decision he had to make at Burro, he answered that it’d probably be the one he took during his first days in the role. His mission? Find the primary contract manufacturer for ther supply chain. The problem? At the moment they had only the necessary money and not enough volumen in their orders to bring on large companies , on top of that they were against time. As if that wasn’t enough, they needed an option with a very specific skillset, the vehicles Burro offers are built under a highly technical design so special components were needed.
Going with an electronical assembler was the best choice, yes, they weren’t experts in mechanics but that was something the team of Burro could help them with.
Understand your product
This becomes quite useful when you are sourcing for suppliers or partners in the manufacturing side of things, you have first to develop a clear understanding of where your product is at the moment and where is going in the near future. Are your needs project to grow? Would you expect to see a lot of changes in your demands? Pick the supplier that is willing to adapt to your requirements.
