Cafeteria & Catering Services Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Cafeteria & Catering Services market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Catering market. Suppliers have historically gained handsome margin-on-margin by sub-contracting a part of their work to another contractor. However, Buyers are now delving deep into the business models of suppliers and negotiating hard to avoid further sub-contracting. In cases where it is imperative to sub-contract, category managers are employing should-cost models to keep supplier margins on sub-contracting to the minimal.

The category has historically lagged in tech adoption due to inadequate skillsets of majority of workforce and the perennial requirement to reduce facilities related cost. Therefore, suppliers who have demonstrated technological prowess to achieve efficiencies are being preferred over traditional vendors.

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 Cafeteria & Catering Services.

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

Cafeteria & Catering Services 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 Cafeteria & Catering Services procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers must clearly define clauses pertaining to the ownership of sub-contracting services that are not a part of their preferred suppliers' portfolios. This will ensure consistency in the services of sub-contracted firms as well as protection of confidential data.

Investing in benchmarking studies that help category managers enhance their knowledge on pricing or billing rates of suppliers allows them to not only save costs, but also negotiate better with suppliers. For example, while negotiating for bundled services, they can save significantly on a single service by cross-verifying rates quoted by suppliers against industry benchmarks.

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.

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