BlkKnight

WTF.

Various customers (typically Councils, Schools, Prisons & larger Gyms) we have are implementing newfangled IT systems where our catalogue is listed on their Intranet. To be fair it offers quite a lot of useful functionality (for them).

The problem is we don't supply goods of a particularly high value and probably turn over about 5k per annum with each business unit.

Each business unit in question is refusing to use us as a supplier unless we stump up circa £2.5k per annum to be set up on their Intranet.

And as of April, many of them are refusing to do business with us because of that.

Real pain in the ****.

/rant over

53

iTrader: (41)

About 7 years ago I worked on a IT project where local councils wanted banks to provide procurement systems for them to streamline their purchasing. The single biggest cost appart from all the equipment they wanted for free, was the cataloguing. I am not surprised to read your post, I always considered their policy to exclude small businesses and local firms that wouldn't be able to participate in a fully online procurement system. Unfortunately they have to be able to provide evidence of 'best buy' alongside cutting costs and from memory the thinking was that by disseminating responsibility for day to day purchasing through intranets it saved the tax payer money ???

IIRC their was very little in it for the banks as the councils wanted a piece of all the bits of pies which would make it a worthwhile investment.

BlkKnight

it's a bit short sighted.

Why they couldn't have a national database I don't know.

Scaled up, the costs of cataloguing would be made cheaper.

What gets me is we have offered to give them the data in any format they want, so that they can simply import it (to try and cut costs) - they refused.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Offer to set it up for them, or have another subsidiary firm/different trading name to act as a contractor. Offer to do if for £250 less than they were going to charge you

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Would this involve SAP software by any chance?


You best bet is to stay in contact with the actual purchasers, and aim for the non-standard stuff they might want. We have one of these system at work and it's a PITA. Actually that's an understatement - scraping my own gonads off with a plastic spatula would be more pleasant than using it. But the while I can't evade it for routine stuff, I do have the right to do (albeit risking a b*ll*cking) what I want with non-standard stuff. But otherwise they have you over a barrel I'm afraid.


M

Suresh

Haven't supermarkets been doing this for years??
You'll need to sell out to a bigger player or go bust I expect