When you’re looking for the right equipment for the fleet for your city or county, you’ll notice that the barriers to success are all too plentiful and that the process can be time consuming. Tap into support and management for an effective and efficient bid process.
Many leaders in the public sector face limited resources to manage these large purchases in a way that maximizes cost and time savings. If you are struggling with supply chain and procurement, consider using cooperative contracts to help support your efforts. The challenges are not insurmountable, but they do need to be identified in order to find the best solutions.
Defining the challenges of procurement
You might find it difficult to create bid specifications that match your needs. Creating bid specs can be tedious in this day and age of specialized equipment. The detailed knowledge about the equipment might come from your staff, though more likely, it will need to come from sales reps in the field. But since these reps are selling a specific product, they are not ideal resources for creating bid specs. Digging into these details is important but time consuming for a purchaser with limited knowledge in this area.
Waiting the required amount of time that a bid must remain open can also be problematic. Depending on the guidelines of your state and local regulators, certain requests for proposals may require minimum open periods to accept bids. Waiting for the numbers to come in can also be an additional challenge and stressor because high bids require budget flexibility that might not exist, which can slow the process even more.
Navigating supply chain backlogs create yet another issue. In 2019, supply chain issues occurred but were uncommon. In a post-COVID-19 world, supply chain issues are the new normal, making it typical to have significant delays and extended delivery times. It is not impossible for you to manage this situation, but it does require your time and resources to track.
Be prepared if these challenges create delays and stretch timelines into unacceptable ranges. Each can also take significant time from your staff to manage.
Cooperative contracts create a route to successful fleet procurement
You can solve many of these logistical issues using a cooperative contract. Cooperatives leverage volume purchasing for specialized equipment and as a result, have lower, more predictable costs.
Government agency leaders not only can get the best deal, but they can also get it much more quickly than through a traditional bidding process. Specifications do not need to be ultra specific, and the RFPs do not need to be open for set periods. Since you can have a clearer idea of the type, cost, and quantity of equipment available, you don’t need to overmanage the process.
Purchasing through a cooperative isn’t complicated, but you still should have access to the best information. But even this step can be easy. Partners like Sourcewell can provide a path to successful supply chain and procurement management that avoids huge time commitments from your staff.
Final delivery of the fleet can also be a logistic issue. When you purchase through a cooperative, you can track the delivery and know the overall timeline more accurately than via a traditional bid process. There might still be delays in the supply chain, but planning is much easier when the final delivery date is known.
You closely track time and cost because they are important variables that impact budgets. But in the public sector, these two variables are often fixed. When it comes to supply chain and procurement management, you can remove the barriers with the right partners in the right setting, so you can have more accurate pricing, better budgeting, and more time savings for the staff. If you avoid the lengthy bid process, your fleet can be operational on a timeline that supports everyone in the community.
Here at Sourcewell, we help public agency buyers procure fleet vehicles faster by fulfilling the time-consuming bid process for them. Through cooperative contracts, we expedite the fleet vehicle procurement process so you can better serve your teams.
Want a faster procurement process? Contact one of our specialists today to buy the fleet solutions you need!
