Global Sourcing
Try the following: First, mark the headquarters of randomly selected major companies on a map, and then enter the locations of their active suppliers as well. This will reveal the following phenomenon: companies located more toward the middle of a country are more or less surrounded by a circle of suppliers. In the case of companies close to the border, the suppliers form a rough semicircle. In other words, German companies still tend to use mostly German suppliers, just as French companies continue to use mostly French suppliers. Thus , we can reasonably conclude that it is not always the best supplier for the job who actually gets the contract.
This is where global sourcing comes in. The core elements of global sourcing are utilization of the worldwide supplier market and the issuance of offer-solicitation documents designed for international use.
Nowadays, identifying suppliers throughout the world has become a great deal easier thanks to the supplier directories available on the Internet. Provided it is done professionally, the goal of procurement should be no less than to identify all potential suppliers throughout the world—it is not unusual these days to send inquiries to 5,000 suppliers or more for just a single product group.
Since the primary language of procurement is English, all documents used by procurement in its interaction with suppliers must be in correct and clearly comprehensible English. This applies to image brochures, quotation forms, drawings, specifications, standards, and business terms.
In addition to these “hard factors,” it goes without saying that the parties involved must, of course, be open to doing business with suppliers from other cultures.