Steel Strip Market Procurement Intelligence Report

The market for Engineering Components and its sub-segments such as Steel Strip are at an interesting intersection. 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.

Markets across the globe are reeling under shortage of professionals and workforce that have relevant skills and training. Minimum wages and stringent regulations are compelling suppliers to increase their employee expenses which are expected to have an inflationary impact on buyers' procurement cost.

Several structural changes including M&As and vertical integration efforts of suppliers are characterizing the broader market. Such strategic developments can erode the strength of previously established supplier relationships due to changed realities in the supplier's ecosystem. At the same time, buyers may also find opportunities to onboard new suppliers with a wider range of offerings or better contract terms for .

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

It has become imperative for category managers to remain as agile as possible in terms of their procurement practices. However, it is not always easy to quickly spot and implement alternative practices in a category like Steel Strip. To help quick decision making, this report advises on several procurement best practices that have worked well for category managers.

For example, Buyers need to evaluate the in-depth expertise of suppliers in the Steel Strip industry. This can be assessed by considering factors such as the years of experience, number of resources that have multi-year experience of working in the same industry and at least 3 to 5 credentials for 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.

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.

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