Window Blinds & Shades Market Procurement Intelligence Report

Office Furniture, Fixtures and Fittings market around the world is undergoing rapid transitions that have a massive potential to influence the way companies strategize for Window Blinds & Shades procurement and the cost they have to incur. A balanced approach to procurement of Window Blinds & Shades has emerged, where buyers with multiple locations first outsource at individual locations and gradually move to standardize and consolidate the services across facilities.

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.

As market presence of companies become global, there is a growing preference towards service providers who can provide services seamlessly across the globe and have excellent understanding of local regulations and culture.

Window Blinds & Shades 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 Window Blinds & Shades procurement strategy.

For example, Buyers should evaluate the true costs of each product and service within the scope of work for supplier, and also understand the hidden costs associated. This can help them to set accurate targets for cost reduction for their suppliers, and effectively monitor and evaluate their performance against industry benchmarks.

Buyers require industry-specific services to effectively operate their production facilities. Thus, they should opt for service providers that can offer customization and bring in years of experience in serving the needs of that industry.

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.

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