Reputation is Key to Successful Supplier Selection

In February, Indeed’s editorial team published an article explaining the criteria businesses should use when evaluating suppliers.

Not surprisingly, their list of criteria included:

• • Pricing
  • Quality
  • Service
  • Social Responsibility
  • Convenience
  • Flexibility
  • Risk

Price, quality, service, and social responsibility are self-explanatory. In the Indeed article, convenience was defined to include ease of ordering, speed of delivery, and how willing a supplier is to accommodate a company’s needs. Flexibility, in their instance, referred to a supplier’s ability to scale deliveries up or down based on customers’ business needs, and risk was identified as the probability of price increases or reduced supply.

While this list of criteria might seem sufficient at first glance, we couldn’t help but notice that it was missing an important element: Reputation. A company’s reputation should always be a consideration when choosing a supplier. What do their customers say? Do the company’s actions always match their words? Do they say one thing during the sales pitch, but write something different in their contracts? Do they deliver on promises? How do they react when something goes wrong? Do they respond quickly to customers in a crisis? How long have they been around?

At Dow Gage, we know that a company’s reputation is often the deciding factor when choosing a supplier because we’re experiencing this phenomenon firsthand.

For example, a few of our customers have recently begun outsourcing some of the parts they used to make inhouse. When contracting with suppliers to manufacture these parts, one of their non-negotiable terms is that these suppliers must use gages from Dow Gage when they manufacture their parts.

We have no doubt that this decision was based on our reputation for meeting or exceeding all the criteria mentioned in the Indeed article. And, to our knowledge, our customers’ new suppliers willingly agreed to use Dow Gage products and work with our team as required. Why? Our excellent reputation.

While it might seem intuitive to define a company’s “reputation” as simply the sum of Indeed’s supplier selection criteria, there’s more to consider. A company’s reputation isn’t just defined by its customers’ perceptions. Corporate culture and employee satisfaction are also part of a company’s reputation.

Is the culture competitive or collaborative? Are employees engaged and invested in the company’s success? Do they enjoy working there? Knowing the answers to these questions up front can provide insight into how easy or difficult it will be to work with a company. Working with disgruntled employees or a supplier that experiences high employee turnover can create unnecessary obstacles.

For these reasons, we recommend adding “reputation” to your list of selection criteria when choosing new suppliers. We’re grateful our customers do!

Contact Us when you need a reputable gage supplier.