Metal Locating Equipment Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Metal Locating Equipment market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Engineering Products and Equipment market. Procurement costs for Metal Locating Equipment are highly impacted by an increase in the costs associated with the value chain of Metal Locating Equipment, such as logistics, labor cost and energy. Additionally, outdated assets are also increasing the cost for suppliers.

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.

Suppliers are continuously taking efforts to improve efficiencies and productivity and deploying processes and technologies. Some of these investments are likely to increase their costs in the shorter term, but learnings from other sectors keep the suppliers optimistic about a lean cost structure in the longer run.

As a result, category managers need to closely monitor the Metal Locating Equipment procurement trends and identify changes required in their procurement environment for the category.

Metal Locating Equipment procurement best practices are moving towards a level of sophistication which is typically seen in traditional procurement categories. Category managers now have an attractive opportunity to adapt the best practices seen within this category as well as those being leveraged in other non-related categories. This report summarizes the best practices picked from across multiple categories that could work well for category managers involved with Metal Locating Equipment procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers must have a clear understanding of the subcontracting policies, if any, of Metal Locating Equipment 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 engage with suppliers that repurchase used products at fair market value. This assists buyers to dispose of used products in a convenient manner. Also, during such repurchases, suppliers provide credits to buyers for future purchases. This reduces overall procurement costs for buyers.

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