Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes Category Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Warehousing and Storage market. Service providers have begun to use advanced technologies and tools such as loT, predictive analysis and big data for optimal asset utilization, geofencing, warehouse management, and smart inventory management. The efficiencies gained by using new technology and improvement in customer service capabilities are significant. More and more suppliers are moving towards adopting these technologies to realize significant efficiency gains in the longer run, however, it may also increase their OPEX in the short run.

Rise in minimum labor wages across countries such as the US and China will result in increased employee expenses for Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes 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.

As a result, category managers need to closely monitor the Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes procurement trends and identify changes required in their procurement environment for the category.

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 Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes procurement insights and hand picks best practices that can work for category managers delving in this market.

For example, Buyers need to assess the level of automation provided and time required to obtain process efficiency, apart from checking if suppliers have the correct documentation for as-is processes and to-be processes to avoid any conflicts in implementation.

Buyers should negotiate to get the best add-on services from their suppliers, such as real-time tracking, route optimization, big data analytics to plan and forecast future requirements and Six Sigma practices to ensure the procurement of quality services.

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.

Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes procurement managers also need to proactively identify and mitigate potential risks that can arise in the supply chain or contracts for Wooden Shipping Crates & Boxes procurement. Some examples include: