Many managers of schools, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, and office buildings have never taken the time to see if their procurement strategies are saving or costing them money.
Several studies indicate that just one invoice can cost as much as $25 to process, and that’s just one of the costs associated with procurement.
To help managers get a better idea of how well they are doing when it comes to keeping procurement costs in check, AFFLINK, developer of ELEVATE, an online technology that provides clients with procurement solutions to drive efficiencies, has created “The Eight Question Procurement Cost Audit”.
Answer yes or no to the following audit questions. At the end of the test, you will know whether you’re a “Rockstar” and have a tight lid on procurement costs or you’re not doing so well and need a “Supply Chain Health Check”.
- 1. Have you checked inside your supply closet in the past two weeks?
- 2. Related to this, do you know how many days of inventory you have on hand?
- 3. Are you ordering supplies from 10 or more suppliers?
- 4. If you have multi-state locations, are you working with a national vendor to consolidate supplies?
- 5. Do you have a common payment platform across all locations?
- 6. Are you paying vendors by check?
- 7. Have you ever workloaded your facility to help identify cleaning-related labor savings?
- 8. Is it your goal this year to reduce supply chain costs and streamline procurement operations?
If you answered “yes” to six or more questions, you’re a Rockstar. If not, you need to optimize your procurement program to take advantage of some cost savings.