New Tool for Sourcing New Products and Taking Fast Decisions

Searching for, and finding, the right suppliers and products in China is easier said than done; especially when you have distance, language-barrier, and lack of relationship against you.

Luckily, the ShowSourcing app can help you track down and work with perfect Chinese suppliers, due to its ability to manage and simplify your supplier sourcing and follow-up efforts online and when mobile directly on your phone or tablet.

We recently interviewed the CEO of ShowSourcing. Let’s hear what he had to say about about finding suppliers with their app…

Who are you, what do you do?

My name is Antoine Praet, I’m CEO at ShowSourcing. ShowSourcing helps companies professionalise their sourcing processes. 

Being the first to ship the best products is the key competitive advantage but requests some strong processes and an efficient way of working. ShowSourcing helps teams achieve faster purchasing cycles by enhancing team collaboration. To deliver on these promises, we offer a Mobile App to take notes on trade shows, fairs or factory visits and a Web App to share, organise, manage all your products/suppliers with your colleagues and make decisions.

What  problem do you solve?

There are 3 big poles in every sourcing process: the collection of information, the collaboration between team members and then the decisions that derives from the first two points. As the pressure to be the best in those 3 poles rises due to globalisation and competition, it’s more and more important to be faster than everyone else. ShowSourcing helps professionalise those poles by offering a framework and a method for more efficiency and thus, faster purchasing cycle.

Who should use your app?

Anyone who wants to work visually. The size of the company or the sourcing team does not matter. We’re working with a freemium model, which means that part of our solution is free of charge and can be used by occasional sourcers or very small teams for example.

What is, according to you, the most challenging part of sourcing?

The main difficulties are the quantity of information and its dispersion. To stay competitive, a company needs to be able to stay up to date with its market, therefore needs to collect all that information and efficiently analyse it before making appropriate actions.

 



What would be a typical good process for sourcing? 

First, having a good sourcing process means being able to precisely define your needs and goals based on tangible inputs such as selling numbers, competition, market evolution… and turn all that into a clear collection planning or wish list.Second,
 a company needs to find the suppliers and products that fits with that collection planning and thoroughly analyse them. The more you source, the better. Finally,
 it’s making collaborative purchasing decisions based on quantified arguments.

How does your app help with that?

We’ve developed ShowSourcing with the help of the best players in various industries. The outcome is a process and a framework based on the best practices of the sourcing industry. It will help you follow the best methodology systematically and increase your efficiency, hence being more professional without adding to your workload or complicating your processes.

How do you see the future of sourcing?

Thanks  to technology and globalisation, sourcing becomes more and more accessible to every actor in the industry. Additionally, sales channels are also multiplying, mainly online which also make them more accessible. We’re probably heading towards a network-model, where everyone buys and sells to/from everyone compared to the current downstream model.

If you had to give one advice for sourcing to our readers, what would it be?

The best at sourcing are the more meticulous, who take time to define a professional process, and don’t rely solely on their instincts. They use quantifiable data and leverage teamwork to make the best decisions. They have structured working patterns and regularly review their collection plans.

What’s  your favourite feature of Show Sourcing, the one thing that makes you proud?

Our geo-localisation feature that allows the app to detect the exhibition you’re attending and give you the list of exhibitors. This is very powerful and will save you hours!

 

If you’re interested in learning more about ShowSourcing, click here.


Antoine also interviewed me about the importance of quality control and our quality inspection software, SynControl, in the ShowSourcing blog. Take a look at the article here: 

You should pay more attention to Quality Control, here’s why.

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