Tell us about coronavirus’ impact on the purchase department of your hotel?
The pandemic has affected every industry and travel and hospitality is no different. During these testing times, supply chains were affected – with businesses witnessing a sudden loss of revenues, unable to to keep up with demand without any availability of credit and subsequently had to let go of staff. While we did face some challenges in sourcing items for minimum operational requirements, however that was quickly resolved.
How are you managing the supply within your hotel?
As operational departments have a bare minimum of requirements, we order products every three days by consolidating a list of immediate requirements. Through this, we closely monitor our inventory and expenses. It further helps us in ensuring our products are fresh and in avoiding any wastage.
We conduct regular vendor audits to make sure items – both non-perishable and perishable are delivered with the utmost safety and are quality products. We have advised our partners to follow the most stringent COVID- 19 precautionary measures including wearing masks and gloves at the time of delivery, our teams keep a check that all these are measures are followed by them and in addition to this, a declaration form is filled, and temperature check is conducted for all the partners entering the hotel.
What are the various measures/ compliances initiated to save cost?
We have renegotiated the contracts with our partners to reduce operational costs. We also established mutually beneficial terms for Minimum Order Quantities to maintain inventory.
How has the domain of purchase changed with COVID-19 outbreak? Do the purchase managers
have to develop certain skills today?
The most substantial change in the industry has been that partners now are not ready to sustain with credit sales. They prefer to receive the payment at the same of time of the purchase.
The industry as a whole must come together to help each other. We understand that they face several challenges, we regularly gather our partners and conduct monthly trainings on COVID-19 precautionary measures with all our contracted partners. The meetings are a forum for discussion on the challenges faced by them and for us to guide them with positive notes on handling their rising challenges. Also, ensuring they are keeping themselves, their families and their own employees safe. We implement a micro negotiation to save cost on items which are highly consumed.Â
How strong should be a hotel’s local procurement process, given the current situation?
In order to keep the cash flow high and go back to normal business, there needs to be a focus on the cost saving along with adequate safety measures. During the renegotiations of contracts, we have asked our vendors to mandate the COVID -19 precautionary measures in their services. It’s essential for partners to have the necessary safety and hygiene measures in place, maintain a strong cash flow position and are capable to meet demands.
How do you identify high-risk vendors?Â
All partners have to provide an attestation that they are abiding to all the COVID -19 precautionary
measures. If they fail to do so, we terminate their contract on prior notice and find an alternative vendor.
In addition to this, we always survey in the market to ensure we are buying at an authentic and competitive rate.
