Skip to main content

parts are parts, or are they?


The plain simple truth is most service businesses would not survive without parts.  On one extreme parts can be considered materials for projects; or those parts you sell during a service call. How many service companies do you know that would allow a client to say… "just send somebody and I will provide the parts". Unfortunately, as we all know this happens many times in commercial building environments where management companies may want to procure their own materials. Of course, from a revenue and profitability perspective (because a lot of us apply the hardware model to price parts, the smaller the dollar value the higher the mark-up) parts are important. 



One of the biggest challenges service organizations have, regardless of size, is the ability to compel purchasing behavior. When you take a project that is for the most part being managed by either a procurement manager or a project manager, the purchasing of materials can be fairly straightforward. In the other case when you relinquish your control to the field and allow purchasing to be managed directly by field technicians, the results can vary. Many factors influence the decision criteria around where and which part to purchase. The real key is ensuring that we drive the most value in that purchase. Value includes the price, distance to procure the part, OEM requirement or not, etc..  All of these aspects can be joined together to form the best value based decision.  As hard as the field technicians may try to drive the best value into an organization, they just do not have enough information.  This is where we see procurement or marketplace systems really shine.  Our ability to compel decisions at the point of purchase by using tools that can aggregate, catalog, and compare the value between suppliers.  PO books, P Cards, credit cards, are all certainly effective in the service business, however, you are simply not getting the most value that you can out of your material purchases.  Regardless of your size you should reassess your purchasing process as you are likely leaving money on the table.



-----

Next post:  improving customer perception

-----
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

why transform?

Why do I want to change, who said anything was wrong with my stack of papers and sea of Excel files?   We solve problems, that is a key characteristic of any successful service organization, if it isn't broke why fix it?   Often, when discussing a transformation from paper or cobbled together systems to a cohesive digital approach, folks struggle with the gap between what they currently do and how digital tools can help.   You really need to look at where the pain points are in your organization and how these compare to your business objectives.   Consider writing down these points on the whiteboard in no particular order, spend a few days shuffling and consolidating into a prioritized list.   Once you have the "why" and the "what" identified, the old remaining step is "how".   Some of the most popular observations over the years have been; Slipping through the cracks :   you know, not the major muscle movements, instead those little i...
Post a Comment
Read more

entusiastic about preventative maintenance

Why do I really care if my field technicians are enthusiastic or not? When you look at a person's work output, as directly related to workforce sciences, you come up with three primary ingredients required to achieve your desired results.   These ingredients are; attitudes, attributes, and capabilities and when mixed properly with enabling tools can yield unbelievable outputs. So what does any of this have to do with routine maintenance? If your maintenance routines actually become way too routine then pretty soon performance will be replaced with complacency. In order to keep any piece of equipment running as trouble-free as possible the maintenance performed, and the thoroughness of the inspection and tasks at hand, have a direct impact on the asset's life expectancy.   There are some strategies that help service organizations keep the enthusiasm at all-time highs. Switch techs from time to time :   One of the best ways to ensure maintenance is being performed...
Post a Comment
Read more

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...
Post a Comment
Read more