Buyer Analytics

Strategy+Business has a great article titled "Manufacturing's Make or Break Moment". The article asks the question... Can developed world economies ever become great manufacturing bases again?

There are four key factors that buyers must consider when evaluating suppliers:

1. Scarcity of raw materials
2. Labor shortages 
3. Product variety with manufacturing flexibility
4. Regulatory and competitive constraints

One of the most important characteristic of such suppliers is their persistence as attentive innovators of operations.

They treat manufacturing experimentation as a source of knowledge for improvement, and their solutions interact in a virtuous circle that reinforces its own impact. These breakthroughs require entirely new designs in process technology. Only those companies that appreciate manufacturing, invest in technology, and innovate in this field are likely to prosper.

The challenge for procurement is to figure out how to find and develop these suppliers — for they are carrying the future of your supply base.