Supplier Management and Procurement

Achieving Cost and Quality Improvements to Strategic Direction

GMT offers its clients a value-added capability in managing supplier relationships and procurement processes more effectively—leading to significant improvements in both product cost and quality.

Based on its years of experience working with consumer products leaders, industrial manufacturers, and wholesale distributors, GMT understands the increasing market pressures that all businesses face in today’s competitive environment. Not only are customers asking for lower product costs, but they are also demanding greater speed and flexibility in delivery—as well as higher quality levels.

GMT helps clients to balance this seemingly impossible list of competitive requirements by implementing more effective strategies in supplier management and procurement—strategies which result in faster cycle times, lower inventory levels, and improved product costs.

A Systemized Approach to Vendor Management
Support for Broad Procurement Decisions
Maximizing the Strategic Role of Procurement

A Systemized Approach to Vendor Management

GMT begins by assisting clients in creating practical, realistic systems to identify suppliers—as well as to manage, measure, and improve their performance.

GMT first works with clients to identify the best suppliers around the world to serve their needs—looking at both existing vendors and international sources that may not have been previously considered.

GMT then helps clients to develop a set of rules and requirements to screen all potential suppliers—based on the unique competitive demands of each client organization. This leads to the creation of a formal supplier certification process—as well as a standardized RFQ process—both of which ensure that only worldclass vendors are considered as partners.

For those suppliers identified as best-in-class, GMT helps clients to create a set of ongoing performance measures that document how well each vendor is contributing to broad organizational goals such as lead-time reduction, raw materials inventory management, and cost control. GMT’s performance measures also consider any value-added services provided by suppliers, as well as technology linkages that streamline the client/vendor relationship.

For many GMT clients, the resulting supplier management system represents the first time they have used a fact-based approach to understand, measure, and improve their critical supplier relationships. By actually measuring suppliers’ performance in such key areas as costs and cycle times—and implementing continuous improvement programs—GMT clients can make rapid progress toward their overall strategic goals.

Support for Broad Procurement Decisions

In addition, GMT goes beyond supplier management by helping its clients to make critical decisions about their procurement processes—helping them to answer critical questions such as:

	Does it make more sense for our business to manufacture products or components—or to buy them?
	Are we effectively using leading-edge e-business tools to streamline transactions and minimize procurement costs?
	Does our business use segmentation strategies, volume-buying practices, alliances, and participation in buying consortiums to maximize procurement efficiency—while slashing product costs?
	Do we encourage long-term agreements and cost management programs that help our business to achieve its long-term growth goals?
	Is our procurement staff well trained and competent in managing complex supplier negotiations?

While it is easy for client organizations to rely on past procurement models and practices, GMT’s objective perspective helps them to identify and implement innovative new buying processes that can have a significant impact on the bottom line—as well as their chances for growth in the longer term.

Maximizing the Strategic Role of Procurement

GMT’s broad experience in helping clients to define and successfully implement top-level strategies provides its operations clients with a unique advantage. Not only does GMT’s consulting team include experts in supplier management, procurement, and other operations issues, but the firm is also staffed by senior consultants with years of general management experience.

Unlike specialized consulting firms, GMT does not just produce isolated operations improvements—but instead helps clients to understand and maximize the contribution of supplier management and procurement processes to the overall business strategy. This leads to short- and long-term benefits—for both the operations function and the enterprise as a whole.

In addition, because GMT has helped dozens of clients to address a wide range of operations and strategic challenges, the firm brings a customized approach to every client engagement—and creates a custom-tailored solution to match every client’s specific operations and competitive challenges. Based on its years of experience, GMT helps clients to define and implement the right supplier management and procurement model to achieve long-term success.