Type of suppliers - Part 2

To continue our topic on types of suppliers, to recap, we already have the following types:

• Not Keen
• Call you everyday
• Never take no for an answer
• Tai-Chi Master
• The Black and White
• The Chinese Medicine Seller
• The Ali Baba / The Parasite

The next type in my list is "The Cut Throat Type". This type of supplier is the type where they think their customer are all pre-university students who do not know the "value" of goods in the market. For whatever the quotation they give, if you were to make a comparison, you will find that their prices are at times 3 to 4 times higher than other suppliers. This type of supplier do not realise that there are such thing call the Internet and almost everything is available there or at least you can judge the value from there. To handle this type of supplier, I will ensure that I will only ask them to quote once and then "black-list" them.

"The Never Keep to Deadline" type is next type. This type of supplier will normally delays almost everything they supply you. During the negotiation, they will agrees to a certain delivery deadline but when the time comes, their product is either not ready or worse not even being build. Well, you can say you will put a Liquidated Asset Damages (LAD) penalty to them, but they will not respect to the LAD. The most the LAD is up to 10% of the contract value and what more can you do? You can't go search high and low for another supplier at the last minute and re-negotiating all the technical and commercial specifications again. You will not have the luxury of time and also for urgent or fast delivery, it normally comes with cost. For me, when I encounter such a supplier, the transaction will be just once off and never return to them.

"The Cut and Paste" supplier is the next on the list. This supplier will first promise you that whatever products they sells are either manufactured by them or part of their OEM. But, when they deliver the goods to you, you will find that a lot of modifications on the label portions. Either the original brand had been removed and replace or at times, even re-painting is done to change the colour of the product. At times these supplier is even so lazy to remove the old labels, they just stick their label on top of the original label and send it across to you. They try to do a cover job but was too lazy to do it properly. For this type of supplier, again, its a once off supply.

"The First Sweet, Then Pain" supplier is next. What do I mean by this supplier you ask? Well, first, their price is attractive. Then, the follow up is good, they deliver on time and everything looks positive / "sweet". You think you had found a reliable supplier. However, after the one year warranty period, the pain starts. When their product / parts fails, the replacement cost is out of proportions. For every trip their service men make to site, they will charge you from mileage to man hours inclusive of travelling time. Then, when they had identified the faulty part(s), the cost to replace it is as good as buying the new unit. To handle this type of supplier, normally I will ask them to give me a spare part list with their respective cost and the individual expected lifespan of the part(s) so that when I require any spare parts, I will not be "on the chopping board" or at their mercy.

Well, so far I have written 11 types of suppliers... I am sure there will be more available that is not covered here. I will keep this topic open for future posting...

Good luck to everyone out there who need to deal with suppliers.