- Understand the new challenges presented to supplier by the modern professional buyer
- Understand their ambitions and strategies designed to manage their suppliers (key suppliers or otherwise)
- Develop the appropriate responses to these strategies, as they are relevant to a Key Account Management approach
- Be able to prepare and conduct effective negotiations with those buyers, designed to remove the focus on price
THE PURCHASING REVOLUTION
- The buyer/seller balance of power used to be 50:50 – new skills and techniques have tipped this significantly in the buyer’s favor
- The buyer’s role has undergone a revolution in recent years – have sellers fallen behind?
- Do your customer's know more about you than you know about them?
- Account Managers think they manage their customers – but is the buyer really managing you?
- Do you understand the new tricks buyers have up their sleeves?
- The biggest sin of sellers - say buyers - is that they don’t prepare as much or as well as we do
- The things suppliers never ask... and buyers are amazed they don’t!
HOW THE BUYER THINKS
- They type of buyer you encounter depends on the nature of the product or service bought, but also on some professional ‘instincts’
- Understanding those instincts is vital to developing a successful relationship between seller and buyer
- How to recognize the buyer types
PURCHASING ORGANISATION
- The goals of centralization - what motivates the buyer to centralize their operations – is it only the desire for better prices based on the increased scale of purchase?
- What problems do they encounter?
- Why suppliers must work with purchasers to help them achieve the goals sought through centralization – the alternative is likely to be fatal!
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
- Buyers are far more interested in supply chain management than sellers, and yet sellers should realize the benefits of working with buyers to improve the steps along the supply chain, rather than fearing this new interest as yet another stick with which they might be beaten.
SUPPLIER POSITIONING
- Just as sellers aim to identify Key Accounts, so buyers aim to identify Key Suppliers.
- This involves a classification of suppliers (using the Kraljic Matrix analysis) that allows their buyer to identify the best way to manage the relationship with each supplier.
- Each supplier position (there are four main positions) raises a series of requirements on those suppliers.
- How buyers ‘precondition; their suppliers with regard to their supplier positioning, and how e can learn to recognize the signs.
- Failure to understand your supplier positioning will almost certainly result in inappropriate behaviors and propositions.
- Understanding your supplier positioning can lead to a high level of business rapport between seller and buyer, and in some cases can even result in the achievement of premium prices and other rewards.
THE SUPPLIER'S RESPONSE
- Develop the appropriate negotiation skills required when working with the modern professional buyer
- Be able to present a value proposition that is relevant to the buyer’s agenda while reducing the focus on price and increasing the opportunity for true value selling
- Develop different persuasive strategies based on the nature and personality of the buyer
- This session will involve a significant use of negotiation case study and role play, delegates taking on the roles of both sellers and buyers, and also participating in peer-to-peer reviews
