Assembly Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Assembly market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Operation of Industrial Facilities market. Suppliers are shedding the category expert tag and moving up the value chain to offer an integrated approach to their services. With this new approach, suppliers can offer a wide portfolio of services and position themselves for large contracts that go beyond just Assembly.

Several macro level trends such as slowing economic growth, trade conflicts, rising wages and technological disruptions have put pressure on managers to reduce their spend on Assembly without affecting the performance.

A balanced approach to procurement of Assembly has emerged, where buyers with multiple locations first outsource at individual locations and gradually move to standardize and consolidate the services across facilities.

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

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 Assembly. To help quick decision making, this report advises on several procurement best practices that have worked well for category managers.

For example, Category managers must explore opportunities to integrate planning and management activities of categories using analytics, to gain better control over category spend. This will also allow them to consolidate their supply base easily, as well as to segment suppliers based on requirements and spend on each supplier.

Benefits of an integrated program are more apparent over a period of 5-7 years, and the goal in such relationships is to achieve cost savings and improve performance in the long run. Buyers should opt for suppliers that have a track record of long-term engagements as this will increase the probability of these suppliers sustaining in a mutually beneficial relationship for a longer duration.

Buyers must ensure the participation and collaboration of all related cross-functional teams (procurement, electrical, engineering, and housekeeping) in category management and planning activities. This is crucial, as these teams will be the primary end-users of the services offered by suppliers, and this step will ensure consistency in services.

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