Dragon Sourcing is a global procurement firm. We assist our customers in locating suppliers of high-quality items at highly reduced costs in developing markets. We recently assisted a renowned packaging maker and reseller in Australia in locating a credible vendor to source their goods at low prices. This case study will illustrate how we discovered the best supplier for our customer. The customer requested that we discover credible providers from whom they might acquire corrugated and lithographic fiber packaging to save money. They told us to look for vendors in the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and India. When we received the assignment, we carefully examined the requirements of our customer (materials, volume, specs, etc.). After we understood our customer’s needs, we diligently searched for suppliers who were willing to supply the things that our client desired in the precise geographical region the client mentioned. To discover the proper source, we searched the web as well as our huge database of suppliers and our own proprietary online sourcing platform (GSP) to handle sourcing projects from start to finish.
Based on our study, we discovered 452 possible suppliers of the items that our customer wanted to purchase. Once we had found these potential suppliers, we called them to screen the finest vendors who met all the criteria that the customer had established for them. Only 114 vendors passed the pre-screening procedure. We then issued an RFI/RFQ to these vendors after conferring with our customer on the terms and conditions to put in the RFI/RFQ, which included an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Only 96 of the 114 suppliers signed the NDA. We also got 49 RFIs and RFQs from prospective vendors. After carefully reviewing the RFI and RFQ, we recommended 14 vendors for audit. We did an onsite examination of these 14 vendors and suggested 7 for sampling. We obtained samples from four vendors and, based on the samples, selected two sources for purchase, one for cartons and the other for display. We tracked both orders.