People Provide Purchasing - The 3 P's?

This is a simple business. We buy stuff, store it and sell it. No rockets or scientists. No manufacturing or extreme heat or chemicals or huge machines. A building, some racking, forklifts and pallet jacks and trucks.
And, oh yes, there’s the people.

“We buy stuff”.
What should we buy? What is in our catalogue?
How much? As much as customers want to buy from us.
How do we know how much customers want to buy? Base it on what they bought last year or last month.

There are some factors which affect the buying. How much space do we have? How much money do we have? How long does it take the product to come in? And, of course, what if the customers buy more, or less, than we expect?

All of the above factors can be put into a formula and a buying program can tell you what to buy. If anything does not go the way you expect, that is when people need to get involved. What if the vendor does not get the order? What if the vendor is out of product? What if the delivery takes longer than expected or is destroyed in a train derailment? What if the vendor ships the wrong product? What if we receive it incorrectly? What if customers buy more than we expect, say they are opening a new office and need a whole new set of files?

Often a buying system will send out automatic emails which warn you that you may run out of stock, for whatever reason, and sometimes even suggest an immediate buy from a (more expensive) wholesaler. And the wholesaler buying can be almost automatic too.

The system does much of the buying but what about the people? We need the people to deal with the exceptions and the unusual; an inquiry from a customer or a possible deal from a vendor. And these people have relationships with customers and staff and reps and vendors which allow them to solve problems and create opportunities.

The buying system keeps us in the game. Our people score the winning touchdowns.