Careful of My Toes

One has to understand that there's no way you can force a supplier to deliver if you're not one of his biggest buyers. Especially if it is not a local supplier. One of my strengths is that, Alhamdulilah, because of my travels, I am able to understand the different and diverse cultures in business. You do not speak the way you speak to an Indian businessman the way you would a Chinese businessman. Nor do you do with formalities with a Caucasion as you would a Malay. These are some of the things that books won't teach you. And even if they did, you'd need lots of practise to know who you're dealing with.

Funny thing happened today. I composed a note, with attachments and all for suppliers to sign and acknowledge that if they fail to supply acceptable deliveries, we will penalise them monetary. Sent out to two persons, Lito - Regional R&D Manager & Bernard - Log. Manager, my direct boss. Lito was acceptable to it. I can tell Bernard's not too keen. The problem I see now is that we have people who would die to supply to us. Word has gotten around that we'll be increasing our volumes. R&D has been testing and evaluating materials from all over the world. Unfortunately, no one is there to manage them.

We have a situation with a Taiwan supplier. He is unable to deliver. He is supporting our sister company in Taiwan and any last minute orders would go to them, at our expense. Our production planner's having a tough time. All she ever does is say "please deliver by this date", or "please confirm you understand that your delivery is due by". Ok, so what if I understand. You gonna make me deliver? From the supplier's standpoint, our business is worth sacrificing and he's telling us that in our face by accepting another order and pushing us behind. That's reality.

How'd I deal with it? I use the soft approach, knowing that he'll not be taken in with the hard knock on the head. I use lots of "please", "help me out here will ya?" and things along that effect. Vendor management is tricky business, especially when there's so many different products that we use. We'll just have to manage the business. Insya Allah, I will be able to do it. The weird thing is, it's not even my problem. But I see what's going wrong and I want to set it straight. Insya Allah, I'll not step on too many toes.

jahwsl
2309
31 Jan 07'