Month: September 2021

Beyond common background checks

QUALITY – COST – SERVICE DELIVERY ARE THE FOUNDATIONS OF OUR RATING CRITERIA. 

Here’s how we specifically assess “Service Delivery”. 

A background check must go beyond the mere credit report, which is readily available for the vast majority of the business anyway and does not give a true reflection on the actual operational profile of a company.

Standard credit reports fall very short of evaluating a business’ quality, its positioning in relation to cost and, most importantly, service delivery.

For this reason, BLK has developed a proprietary evaluation method, currently used as a reference standard within the commodity trading and chemical manufacturing industries and validated on hundreds of clients already.

The BLK Rating, which covers in detail not only financials but Quality, Cost and Service Delivery, with a deep scrutiny on companies’ environmental footprint as well, paints a comprehensive picture of a business’ real position and capabilities.

In this article, we’ll look specifically at how BLK assesses Service Delivery to build the overall company rating.

Service Delivery is a mix of multiple factors. It’s not merely “how well did a supplier do on this specific order”. It’s about a business’ overall approach to continual improvement and it translates into how to operationally fulfil orders as swiftly, efficiently and effectively as possible.

1. Number of Warehouses / Plants

The number of plants and warehouses gives an indication on the scale of a business operations and on its capacity to promptly serve customers in a specific geographic area.

A high number of plants means high output capacity and high number of warehouses is likely to signify prompt stock availability and quick order dispatch upon reception of orders.

2. Average Lead Time

Yet, scale alone is not a good indicator of “how well a company performs” or “how well does it fulfil its contractual obligations”. On the contrary, scale can oftentimes be detrimental, with more level of approvals, more bureaucracy and less flexible organisational structure that slows down the whole process.

Most large corporates suffer from this disease and it is therefore critical to assess a company’s actual lead time from order reception to dispatch in order to have clear visibility of its fulfilment efficiency.

BLK looks at the track record of company lead times, from order reception to delivery EXW in order to properly quantify “how well” it performs and how quickly it can get orders ready for customers.

3. Production Capacity

Usually in direct correlation with the company size and number of warehouses, the production capacity is a good indicator of the ability to quickly fulfil an order.

High production capacity means likely high levels of stock which, in turn, impacts positively on the lead time and translates into ready availability of the goods.

4. Own Delivery Network

The direct ownership of a fleet of vessels, them being ships, trucks, vans or aeroplanes, generally means direct control over their logistic operations and streamlined decision making. It means ready availability of the vessel, direct control and quicker fulfilment.

Although not applicable for small quantities, where companies often times rely on third-party freight forwarders, the above is true specifically for large volumes.

Having a vessel under direct ownership or bareboat charter means no lag time spent waiting on the owner’s availability, negotiating charter rates, appointing agents etc.

Not only that; direct ownership of a delivery network also means cheaper transport costs and better value for the end customer.

5. After-sales / Customer Service Department

Having a dedicated after sales team and a full time, in-house customer service department directly translates into a more inclusive client journey, better customer care and overall improved experience.

It is massively important to have someone human at the other end of the phone to pick-up enquiries, deliver updates on a shipment and, in general, develop those one to one connections that are essential in the development of any business relationship.

6. Reviews: Customer Service

After every order, buyers on BLK can review n0t only the product, but the seller. In particular, they are asked to assign a star value (from 1 to 5) for various different performance areas, one of these being “Customer Service”.

The overall BLK Rating Score for a supplier is computed, among other things, on the basis of that supplier’s score in relation to Customer Service.

7. Reviews: Communication

Just like Customer Service, buyers can review specifically the “Communication” bit when leaving feedback to a seller.

This mark gets factored into the overall rating and used to paint a comprehensive picture of a company’s Service Delivery performance.

Conclusion

There you have it: QUALITY – COST – SERVICE DELIVERY are the foundation of our criteria.

Do you want to get a free assessment of your company to understand how you position in respect to Quality, Cost, Service Delivery and how you stack-up against your direct competitors?

Contact us!