Gravel Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Gravel market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Construction Supplies market. Over the years, regional boundaries have blurred as suppliers foray into different continents, increase their capital expenditure and spend on cross-border M&A initiatives. The deployment of geographic diversification strategies through such consolidation initiatives has enabled the large suppliers to improve their performance and expand their business footprint.

Construction activities and manufacturing of construction supplies are known to be a large source of emissions across the world. Regulatory and social pressures to keep emissions in check have transformed the way construction industry operates. Sustainable practices have penetrated the traditional business processes. There is an increasing demand for green buildings, low carbon concretes and other low emission construction aggregates and renewable energy solutions. All these factors are contributing to a significant change in the procurement standards and practices within the category.

Fluctuation in prices of construction materials has made it difficult for project contractors to maintain a steady cost projection on construction projects. Also, the risks associated with project cost overruns are contributing to project delays and abandonment. Procurement functions are more careful while drawing up supplier contracts and insulating their projects from price uncertainties to the extent possible on negotiation tables.

As a result, category managers need to closely monitor the Gravel 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 Gravel. To help quick decision making, this report advises on several procurement best practices that have worked well for category managers.

For example, Buyers should engage with service providers that offer a wide portfolio and can act as a one-stop solution provider for multifaceted requirements of projects. This enables buyers to save significant costs and increases their spend visibility.

Buyers should invest in benchmarking studies that help them to improve their knowledge of prevalent pricing structures within the industry. This is based on job role and function that allows them to not only save costs but also negotiate better with service providers.

Large firms should prefer to engage in long-term contracts with a preferred set of suppliers that can provide integrated solutions for all scales of projects (small, mid-sized, or large). Partnerships with preferred service providers lead to category-level innovations and enable buyers to avail customized services.

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