Adjusting to the New Normal

As the world begins to emerge from Covid, we wanted to share one way in which Market Dojo can help to adjust to the new normal.

How the pandemic has affected supply chains

Covid has caused huge changes which we expect to continue for years.  The impact on our supply chains is unpredictable. Many businesses have been forced to make severe cuts and  need to pass higher prices on to their customers. Other businesses (for example PPE manufacturers) have seen surging demand which may mean longer lead times for their customers. Ocean freight operations are severely disrupted.

In such a changed landscape, how do you ensure you are still able to get the goods and services that you need at a competitive price?

Addressing the problem

One practical way to mitigate this risk is to run an eSourcing event to understand what the new normal looks like. This can be done easily and quickly using Market Dojo. An eAuction or RFQ allows you to compare prices from a wider range of suppliers. This information can be used to benchmark your existing suppliers and also to identify new suppliers.

The best way

While you could  also do this using email and spreadsheets, there are a number of reasons why we think that using Market Dojo is more efficient and accurate. Some of these reasons are:

• Centralising your communications reduces the overhead of each additional supplier.  This means you can involve many more suppliers.
• Using an online tool means that you can reach a global market. Communication can be managed more efficiently making it feasible to include suppliers across many time zones. This allows you to reach a more diverse set of suppliers.
• Market Dojo requires a format of response structured based on your requirements. This means that you can  be confident that you receive comparable offers from  all suppliers. In turn this means you can select the best offer for your needs.
• All the data is available in a single location. This makes working with stakeholders simpler, and means that if things change, and you need to refer back to the results, you will be able to find the information quickly.

How Market Dojo have applied this

In March, Market Dojo were in the fortunate position of beginning to increase the number of people in our product teams. In order to do this we wanted to employ more contractors. Unfortunately our main partner was unable to provide the people we needed and also had to increase their prices. 

We ran an RFQ to quickly identify a number of alternative suppliers and benchmark the prices we had been offered. The outcome was that we were able to find additional suppliers and receive ‘like for like’ quotes from them. In the short term this has allowed us to fill the vacancies on our team and prove that we were paying a fair price. In the medium term this gives us a long list of validated alternative options, and much more confidence in our ability to weather further uncertainty.

Further reading

For a more detailed take on how Market Dojo can assist with the recovery, you can read our blog on the subject.

What next

If you would like help mitigating supplier risk as we emerge from the pandemic, please get in touch info@marketdojo.com or find more information on our website www.marketdojo.com