What are the base criteria that business' use to approve a source for their products? Is it customer referrals, product testing, technical specifications or is it more likely a weighted average of meeting all three?
Does anyone have a best practice model for due dilligence related to sourcing?
Answers
Sourcing should follow from clarity/specificity re
(1) strategic significant/importance of that product
(2) time horizon considerations: urgency of need, providers' production/delivery cycle, etc
(3) one time vs. many time use, application
(4) your needs: wants/must haves/won't accept in terms of provider(THE SOURCE), product attributes, product performance
(5) compliance requirements: internal and extrernal
(5) decision criteria, which embraces product testing, technical specifications, customer list, references/testimonials, etc
(6) decision process: who is involved? at what stage? role: confirm, veto, approve?
The above inform sourcing providers, evaluating them, evaluating their offers. You might elect RFQ prior to RFP, or bypass that entirely, depending on above factors.
Then, a decision model can facilitate the evaluation and support the decision.
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