BRIGANTIA OPINION
All for one and one for all
Iain Shaw discusses buying group strategy and how indies can secure the best prices on new hardware…
“The direct model works by pooling together all member purchases but with only one order being placed centrally on a daily basis through our central
purchasing system”
THIS MORNING I read an article in CCR, a credit magazine, entitled ‘Debt charity warns insolvencies could rocket 20 per cent’. The article drove home the likely consequences of 500,000 public sector jobs being lost by 2014 and described the current economic climate as very much the calm before the storm – a comment with which I very much agree. Indies have to have solid business plans in place to see them through the tough times ahead. Those who have already built repair businesses and who are supporting their local SMBs are already well placed. Where possible, services that provide recurrent revenue streams should be fully embraced and areas that can provide additional revenue at no increased cost bolted on. The one missing element is being
able to buy at better prices so as to make a margin on new products. The only way to do this without volume is to join an established buying group such as Brigantia, NBG, Integra or Synaxon. The question is which group best fits the indie’s individual business requirements as all promise so much. On purchasing I can only speak for Brigantia. We have decided to move away from only providing indirect purchasing
schemes where members operate their own account with distributors but
group terms on price and 96 PCR December
delivery charges have been pre- negotiated for them. We are in the process of becoming a
hybrid, whereby we operate indirect purchasing schemes with a reduced number of distributor partners, thus focusing our available member spend to help achieve better pricing. And by embracing a direct purchasing model where we actually become the customer centrally and members purchase via us, we can negotiate vendor level pricing agreements for delivery through our nominated distributor. The direct model works by pooling
together all member purchases but with only one order being placed centrally on a daily basis through our central purchasing system. Our members complained to us that they were not getting the best prices on original electronic office supplies, so we started in this area and have already achieved considerable savings for our members, allowing them to buy on a ‘just in time’ principle, rather than once a month to get the best pricing. Although it’s early days, we believe
that purchasing together is the only way to come anywhere near achieving decent margins at competitive price points. I foresee a polarisation between buying groups, distributors and vendors over the next couple of years and for once the pricing battle could finally go in favour of the indies. I would like to take this opportunity
to wish all PCR readers a happy and prosperous Christmas, and for the indies I wish plenty of repairs and help requests in the New Year from all those end users buying new technology over the festive season!
www.pcr-online.biz
CONTACT IAIN SHAW
pcr@brigantia.com 0871 703 4280
www.brigantia.com
Iain invites opinions from PCR readers and will respond though this column
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