Type of suppliers

Thru my working career I have been dealing with suppliers. Perhaps due to the nature of my work, I have to interact with suppliers.

There were so many type of suppliers out there trying to make a living. I have encountered so many types of them.

To start with, there is this type that is "Not Keen" type. This type of supplier when you call them, they will only entertain you when they have no other enquiries available in their hands. When you speak to them, they will just give all sorts of reasons, e.g. our company don't do this and that, this is not our main line of business etc. and when you try to make appointment to see them either by asking them to come to your company or for you to visit them, they will always tell you a date and time and don't show up. If I ever encounter this type of suppliers, I will "black-list" them and no longer call them anymore for any other jobs.

The next type is the "Call you everyday" type. This type of supplier is totally opposite to the first type. Just by giving them a call, they will straight away come ask for an appointment to meet you up the very next day even though the things can be just discussed over the phone and the "nightmare" will start when they give you a quotation. They will call and follow up with you almost every half a day asking about their chances of getting the offer. Your peaceful day in the office is practically gone by them calling you twice a day and asking the same question. The way I deal with this type of supplier is by telling them that I had pass the recommendations to the boss and no feedback from the boss and that I can't be asking the boss every half a day for the response. Also again, I will try my best not to get a quotation from them anymore if possible.

The third type is the "Never take no for an answer" type. This type of suppliers will do in whatever way possible to ensure they get the sales. They will bargain and bargain and bargain so many times and review and revise their quotation so many times until you are happy with the quotation. This type of supplier is kinda easy to deal. You have to take advantage of their weakness point which is not taking "NO" for an answer and exert your bargaining muscles.

However, you need to be careful with this type of suppliers. They will give you the cost / price that you want, but they will set in all sorts of "traps" inside their quotation and you might get caught later.

The fourth type is what I call the "Tai-Chi Master" type. This type of supplier is really good when they want the order from you and very responsive to every single request you have during the quotation stage. They make you feel so confident working with them and the table turns when you give them the order and down payment.

If there were to be any technical glitches that pops up after the award of the order, they will just say they are in sales and that their technical department is handling this order now and they are not able to do anything. They will give you some numbers / so called person-in-charge to call to and when you call this person, he will again says that the order yet to reach him etc etc giving you all sort of other sets of reasons not to entertain you. For this type of supplier, I will again "black-list" them. Just deal with them once and forget about their existence.

The next type is the "The Black and White" type. This supplier will adhere so strictly to the agreed scheme and every microscopic change in the scope of supply will be charged with a titanic scale variation order. They will bring out their quotation and their terms and conditions to speak to you. In most cases, you will be the loosing end as they people normally are very good in twisting and turning. This type of supplier is also sometimes known as "The Lawyer", well you should know the reason.

The next type in the list is the "The Chinese Medicine Seller" type. This type of supplier will promise you the product can do so many things and have so many features. Its like the "all in one" product that you will only need and when you buy it, only then you will realise it does not work as what was discussed and when you approach them, they will tell you that this is because you will need to add on this and that for this feature etc etc. This modus operandi is similar to the Chinese Medicine Seller that says their product have 1001 advantage and when you have taken them, nothing seems to change and you will need to take more of other types of add-on pills.

The next type in the list is the "The Ali Baba" type. They can promise you everything under the sun. They will take up the whole scope of work and then sub-divide out the jobs to other smaller people outside and they make a margin from there. This type of supplier will normally have a very nice and impressive sets of presentation slides / catalogues / photos showing you the work they have done everywhere without telling you the fact that they are just the coordinator and in fact they do not manufacture anything at all. All they manufacture is the marketing slides and their impressive catalogues.

They will also go to the extend of bringing you to their supplier's factory and saying it is part of their own facilities and when you reach there, you will see them walking in and out so comfortably as though really the factory is theirs and despite the fact it is not. When you do a financial search on this supplier, you will be surprise that their paid up working capital is only RM1,000 or sometimes even lesser. They are called "Ali Baba" is because they work on other's facilities.

They can also be known as "The Parasite" type. To spot this type of supplier is rather easy. As mentioned above, when the sales comes with a "too good to be true" type of presentation / catalogues, just ask your finance department to do a financial search on this company and the rest speaks for itself.

I will continue this topic again later.... do drop in later for the next update....