Road & Flight Cases Category Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Warehousing and Storage and its sub-segments such as Road & Flight Cases are at an interesting intersection. Businesses are focused on maintaining a lean inventory of raw materials, parts, components and finished goods. While it is a novel concept to keep the inventory costs in check, it also highly challenging to implement in a global sourcing context and requires a clock work like optimization of logistics and warehousing processes. Companies are moving to a completely digital supply chain footprint to reduce errors and risks associated with such strategies.

Rise in minimum labor wages across countries such as the US and China will result in increased employee expenses for Road & Flight Cases suppliers who will be forced to pass on a part of this increase to their buyers.

Sustainability has emerged as a pivotal theme for procurement decisions related to supply chain. Companies are expecting their suppliers to internalize globally accepted sustainability practices and demonstrate a solid history of putting in practice similar principles. It is worth noting that practices of sustainability are not limited to only environmental impact but has taken a greater meaning of practices that can reduce the overall cost of operations in the long term.

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

As market conditions become more dynamic and procurement practices get more sophisticated, category managers need to be cognizant of the best practices that work for their Road & Flight Cases category procurement. The report offers a succinct analysis of Road & Flight Cases procurement best practices.

For example, It is important for category managers to track and measure supplier performance against a defined set of KPIs that are agreed upon by both parties during contract negotiation, including inventory accuracy, dock-to-stock, and on-time shipment. This is critical to ensure the optimal level of service. Suppliers' performance can also be linked to a part of their fee, which can be paid depending on the level of services rendered.

It is important that buyers assess the operating model of service providers to determine the best-fit case for their organizations. Buyers need to determine if services offered by the providers are comprehensive and involve adequate resource support and a well-defined customizable execution plan.

Buyers should negotiate for administrative control over all technological systems that contain critical data. This will ensure 100% transparency and visibility over logistics operations. In addition, buyers should demand visibility across the entire supply chain using real-time metrics such as mobile and telematics systems.

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