Here's what I saw over and over again.
A supplier opens their inbox on Tuesday. Three new pricing requests. One is a spreadsheet with 20 columns. One is an email that says "what can you do for these 6 locations" with an address list pasted at the bottom. One is a formal document with a 30-day deadline sent to a supplier who doesn't even handle that type of product.
Three companies. Three completely different asks. And before a single number gets put together, the supplier has to figure out what each one is actually looking for.
That's when the questions start. What's the volume? What spec? What's the delivery window? Cores? What's the dock situation at each site?
And here's the part you don't see.
The person who sent the request usually doesn't have the answers. Because the person who sent it isn't the person who works at the facility. So now the supplier asks procurement. Procurement asks ops. Ops asks the site. The site sends half an answer three days later. The supplier gets a response that doesn't quite match the question they asked.
Multiply that by 6 locations. Then multiply it by 5 suppliers all asking the same questions through the same chain.
That's where the eye roll starts. Not at the format. Not at the ask. At the moment the supplier realizes the details they need to give you a real number aren't in the request - and getting them is going to take longer than the pricing itself.
So they stop asking. They fill in the gaps with safe assumptions and safe numbers. Not their best price. Their "this isn't worth chasing" price.
That's the problem. Here's what I saw fix it.
When every supplier received the same information in the same format - with the details already in it - responses came back faster. Not slightly. Significantly. Because nobody had to chase answers. They could just compete.
When the timeline matched reality instead of cramming 90 days of work into 30, the pricing actually held. Suppliers didn't have to pad numbers to protect themselves from a market that moves while the process drags.
When the list was targeted - suppliers who actually handle that product, in that region, at that volume - the responses were real. Not placeholder numbers from companies who knew they shouldn't be there. Real pricing from suppliers who wanted the business.
And when the ask was complete enough for a supplier to scope the work without playing telephone, they stopped guessing and started solving.
Every one of those things is free. None of them require new software or a new process. They just require the details to be in the request before it goes out. Because the suppliers will match whatever energy you put in.
Nobody talks about this because the vendors can't. Telling a potential customer "your process is dog water" is career suicide from the supplier side.
But I'm not on that side anymore. And I've watched too many good suppliers lose business they should have won because the ask wasn't built for them to compete. And I've watched too many buyers get pricing back on what they're buying without ever asking about the value of what they're already sitting on.
It's not what the market looks like. It's what the market returns when it's not given a reason to try.
The spreadsheet can find you the best price.
But only if the right people took it seriously.
More in two weeks.
- Rob