Providing Innovative Solutions to Procurement in Malawi In Malawi, a number of organizations have realized the savings potential that procurement offers.
The Procurer-Supplier website was developed with a goal to simplify procurement processes in organizations and therefore contribute to profit making in a wide range of organizations be it profit and non-profit organizations. Research has shown that a large percentage of organizational expenditure is spent on the purchase of goods and services. Because of this, it has been identified as one of the
strategic areas which an organization can reduce its cost expenditure and hence increase their profits. This has come about due to a paradigm shift in business view i.e. from a national business point of view to a global business point of view. In order for organizations to be competitive in the global arena in terms of profit making, we have seen a lot of organizations setting up procurement departments within their structures. However, much as organizations have set up procurement departments in trying to increase their organizational profits, there are still some external factors that are inversely affecting the procurement function from efficiently achieving this. Some of these factors include:
• The disorganization of suppliers
• The cost that procuring organizations bear in advertising their procurement proceedings
The disorganization of suppliers
Most organizations find it difficult to locate suppliers of goods as well as services due to the unavailability of supplier information in terms of their location, the goods and/or services offered and also their contact information. This has resulted into procuring institutions sourcing from the very same suppliers due to recommendations from fellow institutions or from the information retrieved out of the few marketing institutions available. The disorganization of suppliers has resulted into the few lucky suppliers offering goods and services that are not competitive enough in terms of prices, quality, quantity, lead time etc. It is out of these four as well as any other factors depending on one organization to the next that lead to an increase in the cost margin of institutions. This, later on end up affecting the whole idea of increasing the profits of an organization through the procurement function. The cost that procuring organizations and suppliers bear in advertising and marketing their procurement proceedings and businesses
The insufficient number of marketing outlets that allow procuring institutions as well as suppliers to advertise and market their procurement proceedings and businesses respectively has allowed the few available marketing institutions to be expensive and unaffordable. This has also hindered small and medium entrepreneurs to grow accordingly. It is out of these minute but very critical factors in procurement that the Procurer-Supplier website was developed
