Lapidary Equipment & Supplies Market Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Engineering Products and Equipment and its sub-segments such as Lapidary Equipment & Supplies are at an interesting intersection. Suppliers of Lapidary Equipment & Supplies are moving up the value chain - both organically as well as through M&As. Their portfolios are increasingly being diversified with the objective of offering integrated solutions that go beyond just Lapidary Equipment & Supplies. Even buyers are engaging vendors who can act as a one-stop solution provider across their geographic footprint. Such strategic engagements can help buyers with savings associated with economies of scale and management of a much smaller supplier base.

Technology is improving productivity and creating fresh demand. Convergence of data science, automation tools, 3D printing, robotics, AI and big data has opened up multiple possibilities to better serve customers at a lower operational cost.

Regulatory guidance on data protection and increasing concern over cybersecurity have increased the costs for suppliers as they incur additional spend on compliance and security. These additional costs have a potential to drive marginal increase in prices across the key geographies.

Trends like these and many others discussed in this report are necessitating a relook at the way Lapidary Equipment & Supplies is procured and the procurement cost saving opportunities that exist.

Sometimes, procurement functions are unable to timely alter their practices while responding to market conditions. Industry experts acknowledge that periodically reviewing procurement best practices and adopting learnings from across procurement categories can help procurement teams respond to market needs in a more agile way. This report combines our experience of other categories with Lapidary Equipment & Supplies procurement insights and hand picks best practices that can work for category managers delving in this market.

For example, Buyers must have a clear understanding of the subcontracting policies, if any, of Lapidary Equipment & Supplies suppliers. Factors such as cost incurred, service quality, adherence to timelines, and regulatory compliance of subcontractors employed by suppliers should be carefully assessed prior to engagement.

Buyers should engage with suppliers that have adopted a global delivery model as it reduces buyers' risk. In this model, any disaster/emergency at any operating facility of supplier will result in the work being transferred to a different facility, thereby ensuring continuity of the project and reduced risk for buyers. This model also provides buyers access to skilled labor from across the globe, thereby improving the quality of engineering products provided by the supplier.

Buyers should assess the level of adoption of the latest technologies by suppliers to assess cost-saving opportunities and quality that can be provided by the latter. For instance, the adoption of technologies such as cloud computing will enable suppliers to reduce their internal computing hardware requirements for operations such as CAD and CAM. This can, in turn, enable them to reduce their operating costs, thereby suppliers can offer products at lower rates to buyers.

Lapidary Equipment & Supplies procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Lapidary Equipment & Supplies procurement. Some examples include: