Purchase process optimization for the case company
Alp, Alina (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023060722529
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023060722529
Tiivistelmä
This thesis was commissioned by an internationally operating company. Their products can be described as office furniture and are predominantly make-to-order. Their current process time from the moment a purchase order is received to the moment an order confirmation is sent to the customer is too long, causing a decrease in customer satisfaction. The goal of this thesis is to provide improvement ideas how to optimize their current purchasing process in order to decrease processing lead times and to increase worker efficiency.
As the writer was part of the order processing team throughout the duration of this research, observation-participation research was realized through collection and analysation of internal data. By doing so, the low purchase order quality was identified as the main reason for the time-consuming process. Other research methods were mixed-method research in the form of benchmarking and qualitative interviews. Benchmarking contained questionnaires with both open-ended and close-ended questions, as well as individual interviews and provided a point of reference by comparing the commissioner’s mechanisms to other business-to-business companies.
The findings of benchmarking indicated other companies’ higher purchase order quality, as well as popularity of customer segmentation. Reasons for higher purchase order quality were reliable partnerships with customers, which eliminate misinformation and unawareness, as well as inflexibility of receiving unclear or incomplete purchase orders. Value-based customer segmentation motivated customers’ purchase decision and allowed order handling labour hours to be allocated efficiently.
Through individual interviews with the commissioner’s current customers, unawareness and lack of knowledge about the commissioner’s purchase process and organisational processes were discovered as the main reason for a low PO quality.
This thesis offers both cost-efficient and immediately implementable solutions by utilization of the commissioner’s existing resources.
As the writer was part of the order processing team throughout the duration of this research, observation-participation research was realized through collection and analysation of internal data. By doing so, the low purchase order quality was identified as the main reason for the time-consuming process. Other research methods were mixed-method research in the form of benchmarking and qualitative interviews. Benchmarking contained questionnaires with both open-ended and close-ended questions, as well as individual interviews and provided a point of reference by comparing the commissioner’s mechanisms to other business-to-business companies.
The findings of benchmarking indicated other companies’ higher purchase order quality, as well as popularity of customer segmentation. Reasons for higher purchase order quality were reliable partnerships with customers, which eliminate misinformation and unawareness, as well as inflexibility of receiving unclear or incomplete purchase orders. Value-based customer segmentation motivated customers’ purchase decision and allowed order handling labour hours to be allocated efficiently.
Through individual interviews with the commissioner’s current customers, unawareness and lack of knowledge about the commissioner’s purchase process and organisational processes were discovered as the main reason for a low PO quality.
This thesis offers both cost-efficient and immediately implementable solutions by utilization of the commissioner’s existing resources.