Gray Iron Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Business practices within Gray Iron market are heavily influenced by changing trends across the category as well as within the broader Engineering Materials market. 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 .

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.

As a result, category managers need to closely monitor the Gray Iron 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 Gray Iron. 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 suppliers that have adopted a global delivery model as it reduces buyers' risk. In this model, any disaster/emergency at any operating facility of supplier will result in the work being transferred to a different facility, thereby ensuring continuity of the project and reduced risk for buyers. This model also provides buyers access to skilled labor from across the globe, thereby improving the quality of engineering products provided by the supplier.

Strong R&D focus is the sign of a supplier committed to enhancing the quality and cost proposition of its solutions. Buyers should collaborate with such suppliers for development of low-cost but highly efficiency products that can bring their OPEX down.

Buyers need to evaluate the in-depth expertise of suppliers in the Gray Iron 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.

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