I have a hard time listening to organizations who need to 'cut expenses' and immediately cut travel & training expenses, but then have a staff member shop around all the retail stationery stores for the best deal on a pen or pad of paper... What value does this serve to have a staff spend time to save $0.30?
I've repeatedly dealt with small businesses/non-profits (and even a hospital), where a staff member was responsible to place all the stationery orders on behalf of the whole organization. These people would not only 'shop around' pens/pencils/paper each time, but also would drive to a retail store to do it?? There are time costs associated with people ordering from a single point of contact who then drives, buys items, then comes back to the office to distribute. Buying retail also means there isn't any reports on your most common items/volumes. Stationery is a low priority item in the grand scheme of your business. It's a necessity, but there are tools to manage the costs in a realistic manner. If people paid this much attention to their larger dollar purchases they'd save considerably!
Stationery firms can provide online ordering tools, reporting, AND discounted prices on your top 10/top 100 items...you can even go so far as to set standards on which items staff can order! With free delivery for orders as low as $50, why send a staff member out to go shopping twice a week?
To avoid the constant shopping around, figure out what you buy, and on a no more than annual basis, get quotes on your 'basket of goods' - the lowest basket of goods will save you more money in 'time savings'. Avoid fixating on the individual line items, you may find yes, you'll pay .02/pen more from one supplier over another but overall, you save on the total basket of goods, and eliminate the time costs with shopping around constantly...
Just don't get into the trap of ordering in bulk and keeping 'inventory' of stationery...the other cost waster...
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