5 reasons you should streamline your suppliers
Streamlining your supplier base creates significant cost and efficiency savings, and builds better business relationships.
31 August 2021 Reading time: 5 minutes
Reason 1: Efficiency
Having fewer water and waste water retailers means having less admin at each stage of the operation, from ordering, through to finance and auditing. Each additional email, each extra call, every ancillary transaction adds cost and inefficiency to your business, through wasted time and effort.
This might add up to significant effort for some businesses, even more so when you add it up over months and years.
But efficiency isn’t just about saving a few minutes here and there. When you streamline processes across your water and waste water retailers, you reduce the risk of errors, avoid duplicated effort across teams and create space for your employees to focus on growth-driving activities, like business development. Over time, these incremental wins add up to a far more agile and competitive company.
Reason 2: Lower Costs
Streamlining your different water and waste water retailers naturally opens up opportunities to consolidate your business with a few key providers. This not only makes you a more valuable partner to those water and waste water retailers, but also strengthens your negotiating position, often leading to better rates. When you combine these direct cost savings with the indirect benefits of reduced administration, the impact on your operations can be substantial.
Regularly reviewing your water and waste water retailers' arrangements also helps identify areas of overspending or duplicated services. The savings uncovered can then be reinvested into your business, whether that’s upgrading technology, supporting your team or enhancing the customer experience.
Don’t settle for the stress of dealing with different water suppliers.
Consolidate with usReason 3: Stronger Relationships
By consolidating with fewer, more strategic water and waste water retailers, you often become a more valued partner in their eyes. This shift in status can lead to stronger, more collaborative relationships between organisations, built on mutual trust, better communication and shared goals.
With fewer water and waste water retailers to manage, you can also invest more time in communication, collaboration and joint problem-solving, ultimately leading to more tailored support and better outcomes for your business.
Reason 4: Better Service
Better service should be the top priority in any streamlining effort. While many water and waste water retailers compete primarily on price and claim their products are the same, that’s simply not true. Long-term success often comes from investing in quality, and a key part of that is demanding excellent service. All the efficiency gains mentioned earlier can quickly be undone if you’re constantly chasing answers or resolving issues. So, alongside evaluating fair pricing, it’s just as important to consider which water and waste water retailer is most likely to foster strong relationships and consistently deliver outstanding service over time.
Working closely with a select group of trusted, expert water and waste water retailers significantly increases your chances of receiving prompt responses, proactive support and a true partnership approach. This not only eases the pressure on your team but also elevates the overall customer experience.
Reason 5: Lower Risk
While we all want to support our supply chains and the wider business community, it’s important that we all also protect our own ability to provide for our customers and colleagues. If possible, you should consider choosing a water and waste water retailer who is in robust financial shape, giving you the peace of mind that any investments or purchases you make with them are going to be safe.
Streamlining also gives you more control over critical dependencies in your supply chain. With fewer moving parts, you’re better placed to monitor performance, spot potential issues early and adapt quickly if something does go wrong. This proactive approach can help prevent costly disruptions and keep your business running smoothly.
Streamline while staying in control
Streamlining your list of water and waste water retailers down to one or a chosen few makes good business sense on many levels. But while you can often streamline your processes and save money by being with fewer water retailers, it’s important to make sure that you’re still in control of who those water and waste water retailers are. Several businesses offer a one-stop-shop for a wide variety of services, which might seem appealing at first, but would mean giving up a lot of control over your chosen retailers.
While it makes sense to streamline, it also makes sense to retain a level of control. The aim is to retain a single or core group of specialist water and waste water retailers, experts in their field, capable of delivering the best possible service that’s right for you.
Regularly reviewing and streamlining your water and waste water retailers isn’t just a one-off spring clean. It’s a process that, when adopted as part of your ongoing business practice, helps you reduce costs, boost productivity, improve team satisfaction and future-proof your company. By making these changes now, you’re setting your business up to thrive.
Don’t settle for the stress of dealing with different water and waste water retailers.
We’re fully committed to improving our environmental performance and are certified to ISO 14001:2015. You can find out more in our environmental policy. Our Solutions team are certified to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018.
