Inviting competition for your business is in your organization's best interest. Vendors will go to great lengths to convince you that they alone possess your sole source solution or that you'll always get the "best buddies" platinum service plan because of a personal relationship. The reality however, is that the sole supplier is isolating you from the competition and preventing your organization from achieving a more efficient cost structure.
Having conducted thousands of audits nationwide, it has become clear that cost abuses in single vendor scenarios are quite significant in nature. Common abuses include failing to conform to established pricing, double billing and overcharges. And while you may be convinced that the dependable service you are receiving from a particular vendor justifies a little latitude, you are really overpaying for what you should be receiving anyway. Any major corporation spends more than enough money annually on the majority, if not all, of their operational and administrative products and services to entice multiple vendors to offer their best or near best pricing, terms and conditions. When you demand competition from amongst your vendors, the honeymoon never ends. Once contracts and pricing have been implemented, the selected competing vendors will bend over backwards to outperform the other guy in an attempt to secure more of your business.
An exceptionally valuable bonus provided by implementing a multiple-vendor strategy is that it acts as a contingency tactic in situations where not having a backup plan in place can create costly operating disruptions. When initially evaluating potential vendors, specific criteria must be met. This may include among other things geographical coverage, product line coverage and service response guarantees. In choosing vendors that meet the specified criteria, you will have identified overlapping providers such that if one vendor begins to slip, experience financial difficulties or (knock on wood!) goes out of business, a second vendor can pick up the slack while you qualify a new one. With this arrangement, the competitively priced delivery of supplies and services are never interrupted, and you can leave all the hair you currently have right there on your head.
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