As a steel supplier preparing to bid business on a major aviation corporation, how will the purchasing orientation of the buyer affect your bid? Include the three common purchasing orientations in your response

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Purchasing orientation ought to significantly affect a supplier's customer selection strategy. Depending on how they create and deliver value, suppliers might focus on firms that are seeking the lowest purchase price, the lowest total cost, or the greatest value.

A buying orientation largely would constrain us as the supplier to focus on reducing its own costs and pass the reduction along to the customer in the form of lower price.
A procurement-oriented firm doggedly pursues quality improvements and cost reductions through the integration of procurement activities such as order processing with such other functions as materials handling, logistics, and physical distribution, and through more cooperative relationships with suppliers. The procurement group becomes strategic in its thinking and proactive in its efforts. We can expect highly trained professionals who evolve from buyers into managers of external resources. Increasingly, they focus on acquiring total solutions or offerings comprised not only of products and services but also technology and knowledge.
Supply managers recognize they are not just acquiring a product or solution from the supplier, but building a long-term relationship with us. Thus, supply management entails the integration and coordination of purchasing with other functions within the organization as well as with other firms in the value network, such as customers, customers' customers, resellers, suppliers, and suppliers' suppliers. Under supply management, the business market manager views purchasing "not just as a department, but as a series of value-adding activities."
(Difficult p. 98, 102, 115)