Connell Purchasing Services

Connell PURCHASING SERVICES

Since 1994 Connell Purchasing Services, a division of The Connell Company, has brought value to companies by delivering substantial improvements in direct material pricing, supplier sourcing and management, supply agreements, and materials management; and by effecting ongoing cost reduction initiatives. Connell works through and along side its customers’ existing purchasing personnel, not as their replacements, to develop ways to better manage the material acquisition process and improve the customer’s bottom line.

Connell’s team is composed of purchasing professionals with over 150 years of combined purchasing experience, gained both since their inception as well as from some of the leading companies across the food industry. The company has developed extensive contacts in the manufacturing as well as supplier communities. Connell offers purchasing expertise in commodities and ingredients, and across all categories of packaging. Additionally, through Connell’s Analytical Services group, customers have access to some of the most experienced and reliable commodity analysis in the food industry to assist in understanding markets and managing market risks.

Operating out of its Naperville, Illinois office, Connell serves companies located across the United States, ranging in size from startup to multi-billion dollars in sales. Connell’s customers are a diverse mix of processors, including fresh, frozen, refrigerated and dry, selling their product mix through retail, club, foodservice and industrial channels.

While the company’s services can be tailored to fit the unique needs of each customer, they can be broadly described in the following way:

Full Service:
Connell essentially becomes the customer’s purchasing department. Connell analyzes the customer’s requirements and develops sources of supply consistent with your business goals. Connell’s team conducts the negotiations and administers the supply agreements. Ongoing, Connell orders materials, issues purchase orders, assists the customer in new product development and keeps them informed of critical changes in supply markets. Connell continues to take advantage of technology where possible, working towards on-line access to customers’ manufacturing systems.

Focused Service:
As implied, Focused Service is typically related to providing a customer with purchasing management and support in one or more specific categories of material, e.g. commodities only, packaging only, ingredients only, or some combination of categories. Connell’s level of involvement tends to be as complete as in Full Service, with the exception of actually ordering material and issuing purchase orders.

Strategic Service:
Often more of a project specific service working with a customer’s purchasing staff. Connell may be asked to develop and implement buying strategies, assist in supplier selection or provide project management for key purchasing projects and continuous improvement activities.

Consulting Service:
Connell will assess current purchasing practices and current spends, identify/recommend savings opportunities across that spend, and then provide detailed strategies and action plans to capture those savings. Customers may also request consulting support to benchmark their pricing with the marketplace. Connell’s service is differentiated from that of a consulting firm in that Connell works with the customer through the entire process of cost reduction, i.e. Connell doesn’t just leave the customer with a list of savings ideas for them to try to implement on their own.

Connell Purchasing Services’ four primary purchasing processes:

Data Mining: Connell first works to understand the customer’s business through a detailed review and analysis of their purchasing data and purchasing processes.

Treasure Mapping: based on Connell’s evaluation of the customer’s current purchasing data as well as its knowledge of the items and suppliers involved, Connell identifies where opportunities for savings exist, quantifies the opportunities, develops specific purchasing strategies for every opportunity identified, and finally specifies the plan to capture the savings.

Right Sourcing: Connell implements the strategies and action plans developed and captures the savings. For the larger and more complex purchase categories, Connell takes them through Connell’s right sourcing process where it ensures that the customer is getting the right material from the right supplier at the right price. This does not necessarily mean wholesale supplier changes, as many of Connell’s successes have come from continuing to work with existing suppliers.

Commitment to Excellence: once the initial opportunities are captured, Connell Purchasing Services then manages those suppliers and supply agreements and continues in an ongoing search for new savings opportunities across any area of the supply chain that the material comes in contact with, in order to reduce the customer’s total material acquisition cost and deliver savings to the bottom line. Connell works to reduce the total material acquisition cost, not just the individual price of goods. It utilizes a team approach to solving problems and can tailor team size and make up to the needs and requirements of its customer. To date, Connell has returned savings in MULTIPLES of its fees one hundred per cent of the time. That is an enviable record and one which repeats itself time after time because it is built on Connell’s experienced purchasing staff, knowledge of suppliers, and Connell’s proprietary tools.

Send your inquiries to: purchasing@connellco.com

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http://www.connellspendmanagement.com