Go for the kill: Saving v/s vendor relationship

Organised in association with Hospitality Procurement Managers' Forum (HPMF), the second day of the three-day EF&H Mumbai Expo conducted the Power of Purchase, where the who's who of the hospitality procurement fraternity discussed ways to balance two aspects i.e cost saving and maintaining vendor relationship strategically.

- Akshay Nayak

Moderated by Christopher Basil Massey, senior GM - Procurement, Brookfield Properties, the panelists for the Power of Purchase panel discussion on the topic “Go for the kill: Saving v/s vendor relationship” included Jaideep Gupta, director, Aanyah Management; Mukesh Chaudhary head of procurement, Byke Hopsitality; Mahendra Shinde, sr manager - Supply Chain and Procurement, KA Hospitality; Simson Dsilva, purchase manager, Jio World Centre; Ram Vriksh Dwivedi, sr purchase manager, Sahara Aamby Valley and Sameer Pednekar, sr materials manager, Mirah Hospitality.

Kickstarting the panel discussion, Gupta said that one can use leverage to reduce prices through various ways as the relationship between a procurement head and a vendor is extremely close. “With the time passing the trust develops. The vendors look after the purchase people's requirement from the time of the need. Sometimes we definitely use that relationship as a leverage to gain better pricing. However, at the end of the day, one has to be fair with the vendors becuase as they trust you and you must trust them that when they give a certain quotation to you, there is some basis to it. Doesn't mean that you trust the pricing blindly, but you do your homework, do your data analysis and then make a decision,” he explained.

Chaudhary noted that trust and respect is most important when it comes to relationship with the vendor. “With the trust that we vest in the vendors, we can leverage on reducing prices, but mostly the case turns out to be fallout of the quality vendors,” he added.