Procurement
It might not be the hottest topic to discuss, but it's certainly necessary.
It doesn't matter if your company is located on one side of the world or another, it doesn't matter even if you run a small or large business, the fact remains the same.
You need procurement.
Because how else could your company find the products it needs? How could you source for that exact supplier that meets your criteria?
Procurement is important and that's why we keep bringing on the voices of the most specialized people in the area.
Let's begin
Introduction
Ryan Walsh is the founder and CEO of Valqari, a company that builds point-to-point drones and provides logistical assistance and delivery to various industries, especially the medical industry.
Meeting requirements
As a founder of his own company, Ryan is the kind of person who can give you a precise insight into what makes procurement so complicated for hardware industries. In the case of Valqari, for example,the main challenge was to keep up with the customer demand while trying to source all the quite specific materials needed for their production.
Start-ups and large companies
Ryan gives us a different perspective on what makes procurement different in start-ups and large companies. In the first scenario if you are just starting it's definitely easier as your demand is quite limited, you probably can find what you need on Amazon. For larger companies, as your demand levels rise, so does your need to follow more complicated procurement processes.
The biggest challenge
When Valqari started, and they were still trying to figure out how to build the final product, there was a lot of testing involved, making procurement….well, tricky.
Maybe one day you woke up thinking that you needed to acquire a material, and you did only to find out some time later that you had to make some adjustments and what you bought is no longer needed.
Start sooner than later
If you are leading a company that's still in its initial phase the worst thing you can do is to wait until everything is fully settled. Before you realize it, you are going to need materials to build your product, which means that it's time to keep a close eye on your inventory, having the right processes implemented at each step is absolutely fundamental.
