Performing Purchasing Agent Duties - Assignment Example

Performing Purchasing Agent Duties Need Identification and Specification Introduction Waters is a media based company that deals in various lines of the business for example they do the business of purching and selling computer soft ware and even online initiatives that are composed of the music, provision of the news and the culture of the youths. The programs of the Waters Inc company is set in such away that the audience can make emmotional connection and move to an extent of identifying with the correspondents and go along for the ride. Over a long period of time Waters Company has been known for the culture of producing quality computer soft wares where the ideas flow freely with no swanky offices for the senior management officers (De Witte & Marques, 2010). It operated in large scale with very flexible approaches to business decisions concerning the entrepreneurial skills where there is hierarchy but the ideas flows from the bottom-up and top-down. This paper therefore seeks to assess the role of the purchasing agents in the Waters Inc. company and develop a request for proposal for companies dealing in computer soft wares Rationale for Asking Questions To obtain the information on the project that the company is yet to get into, this gives the opportunity for the company to learn about the project and determine whether the client is a good match that can help the company to prepare their bids and draw up contracts (Cheng, Farooq & Johansen, 2011). The questions will also help to make the client to be aware of the basic requirements and find out whether they are capable of meeting them. Set of the Questions How much if any of this kind of the project is already complete or is yet to be completed? What will determine the software prices? Will it be per seat or per the number of users or per the processors? What are some of the onsite services may be included in the purchase of the software? How often can we update the software? Who are the major user of these products, and what do you sat about their technical levels? Do they have technical knowledge about this technology? What are the upgrades, updates and development support needs of the clients? Do the clients upgrade the entire user simultaneously or they can support very many versions of the product? How frequent do updates of the programs go out and do they inform the customers? What are the problems that you can expect when you are planning to install the software? In the process of meeting your business needs how customizable can be the system? Are there any lists of items that have been requested to be incorporated in the following updates of the software? What are the periods and hours of support and how do the personnel in the department operate? Request for proposal (REP) Definition of terms The following definitions are mostly used in this REP: REP represents request for proposal Client referring to the Waters Inc. Vendor referring to the organizations or the firms that are to submit their proposal towards the REP Overview The company of the Waters Inc. has issued this request for proposal for an integrated document management software system that are set for implementation to meet the operational requirement of the of the various departments that may include building safety, finance and management services and even the administrations. The company request for Five Pentium two computers, each of the computer to be powered by 500 megahertz microprocessor that has a RAM of 32 MB and can be expanded up to the capacity of 500 MB of RAM and a hard drive of 8 gigabytes with 3.5 inch floppy disk drives. The purpose of this request for proposal (REP) is to give information that is sufficient to allow the interested parties (offerors) to prepare and submit their detailed proposals to the Waters Inc. finance department that is the treasury for consideration. Office in charge of issuing the computer soft wares (treasury) has issued this REP on behalf of the Waters Inc. Company. The only person to be contacted on matters relating to the soft wares in the Waters Inc. for this REP will be Carol Davis, the chief administrative officer and the officer in charge of issuing in this REP. all the information and questions should be directed through him. This REP contains a lot of instructions that govern the requested proposals including the need for the information and the material to be included, a description of the services that the company expects to be provided; general criteria for evaluation and more of other requirements that may be specific to this REP. Qualification will be a key factor in this rep procedure and it will frequently be dependent on a follow up investigations on the part of the hopeful bidding company. This document is going to be used by the corporate departments and even the government agencies to prepare and make bids to acquire, the computer components including the soft wares and the services. This document is going to be published in the legal section of the documents or in the trade journal that covers the Waters Inc. company and the departments under which it operates. Role of the Purchasing in the New Products Market globalization and the fast advancement of the technologies require that companies can put effort towards differentiating themselves with products that are innovative so as to establish a good competitive advantage. Manufacturers are increasingly being faced with the shortened product life cycle and as a result there is increased pressure for these companies to shorten their market times. Effective integration of the computer supplier in to the product value/ the supply chain will the most important factor to considered by the manufacturers in order to achieve the necessary improvements to ensure that they remain competitive. It is also important to note that purchasing specialist usually forma a very important liaison that exist between the suppliers and the buyers and therefore their investigation in their function in the new product development is worthwhile Method used to Identify Supply Needs and Specifications It is very important for the organization to form an internal group that is capable of supporting the communication and even the coordination of the activities that are required in the new product development (Anderson & Dekker, 2009). Therefore it is of great necessity to carry out the following important aspects of the organization developments: specialization in every department of the organization, horizontal complexity where a number of different units or group of individual are assigned specific task within the department. Since operational purchasers are in most cases occupied with the purchasing tasks of the day, they may get it difficult to allocate time to the developmental purchasing activities. Therefore it is of great value to note that to recognize the fact that to utilize the purchasing department fully, the organization must consider both operational unit and the developmental unit so as to increase the ability of the various departments to perform effectively product development related tasks. On the other hand departmental specialization aspects of the company may imply the degree and principles of specialization within the various departments. When purchasers are narrowly specialized in a specific range of products or even technologies, they may become involved in the product development in a better way. Supplier Selection, Evaluation and Research Opportunities Currently a lot of companies hope to establish a long term working relationships with their suppliers making supplier selection to be one of the most important parts of decision in the supply chain management. Due to the fact that there are very many suppliers in the in the supply chain with very many criteria it is therefore possible to find the best methods to evaluate and select suppliers. Evaluation of the suppliers is a process that gives direction to the companies to select their suppliers based on the following aims: to reduce all possible costs that are related to purchasing and to increase the ultimate value of the purchasing. In relation to the cost of evaluating the appropriate suppliers, organizations basically put their evaluations to those suppliers that have a good chance of qualifying for purchasing from them. In this process, companies allow their expert teams to go to the supplier site and with different evaluating criteria and factors where they will do an in- depth evaluation. How and to whom the Company will distribute the REP Through the research, Waters Inc. industry has tried to create an enabling environment that over time has ensured that they stay competitive within the local and international markets. They have effectively achieved this through establishing and facilitating cost effective collaboration between a diverse ranges of industry partners that mainly produce computer soft wares. The industry draws the expertise from the departments of the engineering, science, information and communication technologies and even the finance department (Nissen, 2001). As they work to execute their function, this industry is guided by the following sets of objective; to upgrade their software systems in a span of one month, to establish new production methods that will ensure cost effectiveness and sustainability in approaches of biotechnology and manufacturing processes to help maximize value from using the raw material while trying to minimize the production waste as they enhance efficiency through reduced energy consumption and enhanced shelf life of the products. Factors that may affect the Operation of the Waters Inc. Company For the company to successfully manage the operations of the industry there must be a proper human resource strategy that will ensure that the company goals and objective are achieved. The human resource personnel must therefore understand that those factors that affect the activities of the HR are never static and hence they should work to ensure that they put a good strategy that will maximize recruitment and retention of the employees while at the same time tries to minimize issues of the employees One of the external factors is the competition with other companies; the magnitude of the competition among the industries may have a greater effect on the ability of the company to recruit competent and highly qualified workers especially when the industry giants know that the candidate seek them out. This makes it unnecessary to spend money on the advertisement that is aimed at informing the candidates on the recruitment date since the candidates can be able to visit the websites of the company at their own wish and time. For the small companies, it might be very difficult since they may not have the same branding power or the reputation of the company might still be low disadvantaging them from actively seek qualified candidates for very important position . It is therefore recommended for the human resource personnel to mainly focus on materials for recruitment that will ensure fair allocation of jobs to be able to promote reputation of the company and attract applicant that are competent. Next important factor is labor compensation; the amount of the labor that is available will be a motivating factor towards the amount of the compensation that businesses will offer to enable the company attracts qualified employees. In cases where the market is very saturated and the level of unemployment is also relatively higher than the available job opportunities, then the amount of the compensation that the business must offer will be relatively lower than when there are shortages of the candidates and the company must compete with other companies for the available number of the employees. This will force the human resource personnel to continuously evaluate and review the compensation structure following the industry and location salaries. This kind of strategy will ensure that the wages of the worker remain competitive enough that they are capable of attracting and retaining very important staff member while at the same time it remains low enough for the company to retain its financial competitiveness. The HR personnel must also ensure that the internal structure for compensation remains fair considering experience abs specialization when awarding compensation. Time Line of Tasks and Activities The department of Waters, Inc. intends to follow the schedule that is set below. Any necessary modifications may however follow the exact period that the activities that are described to take place in the set schedule. The department will take it upon its responsibilities to inform any party who is interested of any such modifications including posting the changes on the website on the Waters Inc. . Activity Responsibility Date Monitoring the Treasury Website for all communication regarding the REP Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Friday, May 14, 2015 Issue RFP that is posted to Website of the Waters Inc. company Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Thursday, May 20, 2015 Deadline for Potential Offerors to submit advance clarification questions to be discussed at Pre-Proposal Conference Potential Offerors of the soft wares Friday, May 29, 2015 9:30 a.m. EST Pre-Proposal Conference Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares / Potential Offerors of the soft wares Tuesday, June 04, 2015 1:30 – 3:00 p.m. EST Finance Building Room 4 Waters Inc. hall, PA 17120 Deadline for Potential Offerors to submit second-round clarification questions via email Potential Offerors of the soft wares Monday, June 15, 2015 9:30 a.m. EST Answers to Potential Offerors’ questions Submitted by the deadline will be posted to website of the company not later than the specified date. Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares July 9, 2015 Responses to request for clarification must be received by the office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Potential Offerors of the soft wares Monday, July 22, 2015 Best and Final Offer letters sent (optional) Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Friday, August 10, 2015 Responses to Best and Final Offer must be received by the Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Selected Offerors Friday, August 17, 2015 Offeror selected for negotiations Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Tuesday, August 28, 2015 Contract signed Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares /Selected Offeror Saturday, September 10, 2015 Contract approved by the Pa. Attorney General’s Office Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares Tuesday, November 05, 2015 Transitional activities Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares /Selected Offeror Monday, November 08, 2015 Offeror to mail notification materials required by regulation Selected Offeror no later than Wednesday, September 09, 2015 Offeror IVR/Website Live and CSRs available Selected Offeror no later than Wednesday, November 09, 2015 Offeror to mail new EPCs (if necessary) Selected Offeror no later than Wednesday, November16, 2015 Offeror prepared to demonstrate readiness accept deposits from Treasury Selected Offeror no later than Wednesday, November 16, 2015 New EPC Program takes effect – first deposits from Treasury (first funding Office in charge of Issuing of the computer soft wares /Selected Offeror Thursday, October 01, 2015 References Anderson, S. W., & Dekker, H. C. (2009). Strategic cost management in supply chains, part 2: Executional cost management. Accounting Horizons, 23(3), 289-305. Cheng, Y., Farooq, S., & Johansen, J. (2011). Manufacturing network evolution: A manufacturing plant perspective. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 31(12), 1311-1331. De Witte, K., & Marques, R. C. (2010). Designing performance incentives, an international benchmark study in the water sector. Central European Journal of Operations Research, 18(2), 189-220. Nissen, M. E. (2001). Agent-based supply chain integration. Information Technology and Management, 2(3), 289-312. Read More