Delivery time is one of the crucial aspects that can affect your business's bottom line. Every buyer expects a decent delivery time with no hassle.
Large trade businesses and suppliers must set guidelines and standards to guarantee smooth and timely delivery to ensure customer satisfaction.
We understand that some shortcomings may hinder your delivery process. That’s why in today's blog, we’ll discuss the factors that will help you improve delivery times and eliminate unnecessary costs related to your supply chain.
Procurement is an integral part of business and if that is functioning to its full capacity, then you’ll have smooth and aligned business processes that will eventually bring more productivity and profit to your business.
Delivery time, often called Lead Time, is the time that intervenes between the receipt of a customer's order (order entry date) and the delivery of goods.
Speaking in context of procurement, it can be referred to as the time it takes to identify the need, determination of the required goods or services, select the potential suppliers, and the period of negotiation that typically involve discussing orders details and payment terms.
In procurement, the factors that can impact the delivery time are:
■ Unavailability of products or goods
■ Running out of stock near delivery time
■ Identifying or selecting secondary potential suppliers
■ Negotiations at any stage in between placing the order and paying out
■ Transportation breakdowns
■ Non-transparent communication and lack of tracking of placed orders
■ Releasing Purchase Orders and Invoices, and other documentation
As we have seen the factors that mostly cause the delivery time and process disrupted, let’s look at how to overcome these issues.
Here are the most common trouble-shooting ways:
■ Efficient Supply Chain Process
■ Transparent Inventory Records / Better Inventory Management
■ Remove Unreliable Vendors from your Vendors list
■ Share your forecast with the suppliers in advance to avoid delays in delivery
■ Automate the process workflows
■ Improve Internal Communications and collaboration with vendors
■ Quick-response time to the requests/ changes
We have researched numerous ways to design an efficient and hassle-free delivery process and minimize delivery times. We highly recommend using eProcurement software to speed up your procurement processes, which will ultimately result in a smooth delivery process with a significantly faster delivery time.
eProcurement systems help companies boost their efficiency and productivity. By using these systems, you can easily follow up with the suppliers about the products, delivery dates, and other aspects relevant to your supply chain. It provides a unified platform to seamlessly manage and monitor each of the ongoing processes.
It is also easy to keep track of the existing contracts and clauses to make sure that everything is aligned and executed according to the plan, and reduce procurement cycles.
Let's have a look at the highly customized, user-friendly, and dynamic eProcurement software offered by Business Bid that makes the procurement and delivery process effortless for you.
BusinessBid eProcurement software is an automated solution for all procurement processes.
The user-friendly interface and smooth navigation allow you to have a clear picture of all your procurement processes in one place.
Let’s talk about the particular delivery module that this software offers:
Amongst the different features offered by this eProcurement software. You can see the DELIVERIES in the ePurchasing tab.
Here’s what you can do using this feature.
On the deliveries dashboard, you can view:
- Purchase Order Number for which the delivery is being placed
- The date on which PO is created
- The supplier's name against which delivery must take place
- The title of the delivery
- Delivery Status
○ Approved
○ Partially Delivered
○ Fully Delivered
○ Pending Supplier Acceptance
- Actions that you can perform on the specific corresponding deliveries like View Summary, Add delivery for the partially delivered order, View Purchase Order, Mark as Delivered (if the items are delivered), and Closed.
You can add new deliveries for the Purchase Order that were created.
Click on Add New Delivery on the deliveries page dashboard.
You will be taken to an Add Delivery Page.
Just fill out all the basic details including:
- PO details (filled automatically from the PO data)
- Delivery Information
○ Delivery Mode
○ Bill Number
○ Invoice Number
○ Delivered On
○ Address Details
You can enter the Delivery Items information in the table given below:
- Quantity Ordered
- Quantity Received
- Delivery Address (there could be different delivery addresses for different items)
- Notes for the specific item
You can attach additional supporting/ required documents as well. Add any other notes if you want to, and submit the delivery.
You’re done!
That's so simple! Once you have added a New Delivery, you can view all the details by just clicking on view delivery from the deliveries dashboard.
You can track the changes as the delivery status changes, you can view the PO by just entering the delivery name or PO number.
Since everything is available on the delivery dashboard, you have stated the item details and any additional notes to the supplier. So, these things add value to the business process and you can be communicated with and contacted via supplier's message or email.
The delivery address, date, and all the necessary information are provided to the supplier so there are fewer chances of communication gaps, missing information, and discrepancies on items ordered vs receiving quantity.
This reduces back-and-forth messages, emails, and calls between the supplier and buyer, thus, reducing the lead time.
Using automated tools has visibly enhanced the productivity rate, and the same is the case with the delivery process as well.
When all the things are communicated fairly and with clarity, there's no room for ambiguity and thus the buyer and supplier can get straight to the point and can discuss and work out the things together.
When they both have an access to the e-platform, then things become less complicated and result in achieving fair delivery time and a hassle-free delivery process.
Do you want to give your business a boost? BusinessBid eProcurement Software is your best bet. Sign up for a free demo today!
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