Suppliers

[Jawloms]

How open are you with your suppliers about other suppliers? I regularly get "What have other people quoted?" which for me may as well be "What price do I need to beat by a fiver?". Do you tell people about other quotes? Do you tell them who else has quoted if they ask? There are times it's useful to say "I can get it for this much" in the hopes someone will drop their price further.....

 

Stuart

[Steve21]

Normally if it's something small I don't mind discussing, but anything big it's a "give me your best one time deal" kind of convo, as otherwise it's basically them lying what their best is that would annoy me

 

Steve

[dcwhitworth]

I'd feel the same as you in that it seems to be allowing them to marginally undercut the opposition but still make as much profit as possible. Broadly I wouldn't discuss other suppliers quotes, in fact one might argue you'd be divulging a commercial confidence. I might be prepared to discuss who I else I was getting a quote from, but not actual pricing.

[atcoates]

I tend to stick with a lot of the same suppliers and have built long term relationships with them. We go out and look at prices from other suppliers to make sure the prices we receive are competitive. I make our suppliers aware if they are not competitive anymore and they generally adjust their prices accordingly. Working for multiple schools helps as we can pitch a long term business plan to companies like Dell. Dell would rather have the repeat business year on year out than just the odd order now and then and that helps to drive the pricing down for us.

[christhetech]

I'm open and honest with our suppliers in as far as telling them how likely a project is to go ahead, but I would never divulge another suppliers quotation to them.

If another supplier has provided a better price, I will tell them that they are more expensive, but not by how much.

There is a lot more than just simply price that I factor in when it comes to selecting a winning bidder. Price obviously plays a part, but I also factor in how they have approached my initial enquiry. Were they keen to win the business and work with me or were they just looking to close the deal and move on to the next one? For larger bids, did they support me fully throughout the process and offer insightful advice and guidance throughout? We have just ordered Interactive screens from one of our existing suppliers. Whilst another supplier was able to get the price of the screens down by £15-£20 a screen, they were also a little bit arsey when we asked them for multiple demos and seemed quite insistent on pushing us towards a particular manufacturer. The company that got the work was the one who worked with us throughout and was completely supportive in getting demos booked, working with the manufacturers on their pricing, and working with us on installation costs and installation dates to ensure that we got the screens installed at a time that suited us, at the right price. When all was considered, it actually worked out cheaper using them, as their overall installation costs were much lower than the competition, which negated the difference in the basic cost of the screens, and they are coming in on a day that the building will be open anyway to install, so no need to have somebody come in and open up for them at a cost. By showing a genuine interest in our project and taking the time and courtesy to follow up each demo with a telephone call or quick visit to ensure that we got all of the information that we needed from each demo, and actively chasing up manufacturers for any missing details, they won the business. Other companies that we had contacted were not anywhere near as proactive and willing to go the extra mile for us.

[sigma]

As a former employee of a supplier but to large corporations, not schools, and from the days when purchases were less of a commodity - think mainframes and their associated peripherals (if you are old enough)...

 

I'd want to know who the other bidders were, product specs and price. I could get my price down more easily if you were a new customer. I always felt it was dishonest to charge my repeat customers full whack even though that was generally where we could improve margins and would always go the extra mile to win the business as long as there was still some margin in the deal. I'd need to know where to bid.

 

Small schools - you will always pay more because you don't buy in sufficient quantity to have any leverage on price. If you could purchase as a pyramid or add your requirements to that of the High School. You might get better prices.

 

Never accept the the first quote, always go back. If the supplier can't reduce the price, see if they can add something else in such as extra warranty or upgrade the spec.

 

If you need three quotes, never bother going to somebody you know will be expensive just to make up the numbers. If you regularly never purchase from the same companies you ask for quotes, they will never bother to quote competitively either. Try somebody new - by recommendation or reputation and you may have some success.

 

and then you tap the shell at the other end... I know you all know this anyway.

[HTCPCP]

depends on the supplier and what i'm ordering.

 

If i'm talking to either Dell or HP, I will tell them what the other one is offering broadly - so i7, 8gb, 256GB at £499+vat etc without any of the specifics of what processor exact model of processor. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

 

If i know my account manager, and they don't pester me, I'm far more likely to work with them. Works both ways, as they kind of get to know your systems, and what you buy, so when there is a good deal on, they drop you an email. Our former account manager at Insight always let us know when the monitors we use were on deal.

[christhetech]

depends on the supplier and what i'm ordering.

 

If i'm talking to either Dell or HP, I will tell them what the other one is offering broadly - so i7, 8gb, 256GB at £499+vat etc without any of the specifics of what processor exact model of processor. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.

 

If i know my account manager, and they don't pester me, I'm far more likely to work with them. Works both ways, as they kind of get to know your systems, and what you buy, so when there is a good deal on, they drop you an email. Our former account manager at Insight always let us know when the monitors we use were on deal.

 

That's the sort of relationship that I have with one of our account managers. I used to work with him previously when I worked for a Managed Service Provider. He used to be our Education buyer and knew every one of the schools that we managed inside out, so we could phone him and tell him what school we were at and he'd already know what it was we were after. When we left the company, I stayed in schools support and he moved on to a reseller. When I was looking for hardware in my new school, I naturally spoke to him as I've worked alongside him for so long, I knew that I could trust him implicitly. We now use them quite a bit and he's always on the ball, gets back to me straight away and will be completely up front with me on the rare occasion that he can't quite get to where my budget will allow. There have been one or two occasions where I have asked him for a quote and he's told me to wait for a week or two as he's had an inkling that the item was likely to go on promo imminently and he can pass that saving on to me.

[AlanD]

It never ceases to surprise me how much money can be saved by walking away from a deal.

 

Admittedly - "middle men" often have little leeway - but if you can get further back the chain...which you often can when buying quantity - there are often serious saving to be had. And even small percentages add up to large sums when buying quantity. So saving an extra couple of percent when not buying from your usual supplier is worth a lot.

 

 

The best deals are often when it involves whole projects - because while they might not be able to offer savings in equipment - any labour often has significant savings. So buying a projector AND getting it put up (...we usually put our own up....but its not for everyone) might mean that it looks like they put up a wall mount and calibrated it all for £100 and whole morning's work. If you quote separately - it looks more like £250 for the labour.

 

 

Your account managers and suppliers are not your mates - despite their smooth talking - they are out to make money from schools....and I don't blame them...its their jobs to make as much as possible without losing the contract....giving you a good deal now and then keeps you on the hook - and likely to place a big contract with them - even when the price is not so good...

[mavhc]

Could always lie, yeah, x will give them to us for £price you actually would like to pay

[SVM]

I send out an email to a group of suppliers with what is required with spec or preferred make/model and cheapest price that comes back gets the order. Sharing prices with suppliers so they could beat it by £1 I would not do as I do not think it is fair to the other suppliers + if you go back to your preferred supplier and they can suddenly beat the price of the other supplier makes me think they were trying to rip you off!

 

If I am asked what price they have to beat or what others have quoted I decline to share any info and advise happy to give final price paid after order is placed with cheapest supplier.

[mavhc]

Why are people against trying to get a lower price? Do anything you want to get a discount, if they don't want to give it to you they don't have to. Post prices you get in the forums so others can make sure they're also getting a better deal

[nicholab]

I would share prices if I what the better product more than the cheaper one. Normal this is when I have a Dell vs HP in another product area.

[mukz]

Tell them your off about 20% when it comes to bidding, if its an item you can find by typing it in google for cheaper than i tell them to not waste my time

[Blue_Cookeh]

Usually I've found prices are either within a few quid of each other from different suppliers, or wildly over by so much that I assume they just don't want our business.

 

I have a couple of suppliers we have a good relationship with so I'll often get multiple quotes (from new suppliers and old) then give our usual a nudge if they're a bit out. No figures but just a nudge to see if they can lower them - I'd rather stick with people we know, have used before, and have done us favors in the past for the sake of a few quid here and there, relationships are important I feel - you'll be banking on it when it gets to 5pm one day and need a new switch tomorrow morning or something.

 

For very large deals or ongoing support contracts we'll draw the process out a bit and have suppliers go back and forth to get the best price. We're doing a favour for a local primary school who are moving into a new building with no dedicated IT provision - we had three suppliers (their current IT support and two new ones) go through an RFQ, come up with a plan, then come in and present it to us for that work. We're talking a £50,000 project then something like 5k a year on going support in that case so it makes sense to have them battle it out a bit.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Blue_Cookeh