Alternative Solutions

Single-Source Commodity Supply

This strategy offers many advantages:

Preservation of distributor technical expertise.
Speed and ease of implementation.
A huge decrease in administrative costs and supply chain transactions.
Better prices through volume leveraging.
Consistent quality of products and services.
Elimination of redundancies among competing distributors.
A combination of standardization at the corporate level and flexibility at the plant level.
The ability to focus resources on issues beyond product price.

Multi-Commodity Supply

This strategy offers these advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

Savings are generated across the full MRO spend.
Reduced number of supply chain transactions.
Fewer suppliers to manage.
Consolidated product usage reports.
Reduction in the duplication of effort among non-competing suppliers.
Leverage the expertise of MRO procurement specialists because multiple commodities are managed in one contract.
Savings predictions are more reliable.

Disadvantages

Requires a solution that maintains technical support from indirect suppliers.
Startup times are longer than with single commodity agreements.
A solution to maintain the required technical support from indirect suppliers needs to be worked out.
Relatively few supplier organizations have the necessary expertise and experience.
Potential resistance from incumbent suppliers.

WESCO has experience in a wide range of solutions that fall outside the typical single or multi commodity type solution.

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