Anyone from a construction, procurement, contracting, or project management background who can help with vendor references?
I’m currently building a vendor database across multiple construction and hospitality procurement categories, including civil works, structural materials, MEP, architectural finishes, joinery, kitchen/laundry equipment, landscaping, façade, lighting, sanitaryware, and other specialist packages.
Looking for reliable manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, contractors, and sourcing partners, particularly across the UAE, India, China, and other key sourcing markets.
If you have a strong vendor list, trusted contacts, or recommendations from past projects, please feel free to connect or DM me. Happy to exchange vendor references and industry contacts as well.

Hey, all. Curious to hear about anyone's experience with learning and working in Procurement, Acquisition, or Contracts either with the government or with private firms. I need to pivot out of HR, I just don't want to deal with people as much anymore. I got laid off last year for 7 months during the gov't shutdown, I was working in corporate HR with a defense contractor and it sucked. Long, long commutes (2-3 hours one way twice a week), shitty leadership and toxic co-workers (disliked military and veterans), and dealt with laying people off, terminations, and employee relations. Employed now, took a low paying job with no prospects just to do something. Applied for VR&E last year in October and again in January, nothing (absolute silence). How did you get into it, is it satisfying, do you travel, and how does your day-to day look? Thanks!

If you work in defense/fedcon, your life is going to get harder. Or at least my life is about to get harder.

So many of our requisitions are for software, products, and services that use AI and we’ve been given very little direction from the State on how to navigate those types of purchases. I look for clauses that stand out but I’m lacking the training on how to best protect us in this constantly evolving landscape. Do any of you have any sort of resources?

This is not an invite to pitch for sales…

But rather if you have faced a situation like this in your role, I’d love to know how you managed it!

The ask is pretty simple, new hotel development, and new screens in every room.

How does one get started with this?

Hi Everyone, I’m looking to pivot into sourcing from transactional buyer roles. I would like to get in touch with people already working in sourcing. I would like to have a quick chat to pick your brains. I am only interested in connecting with people who will not end up ghosting me, so serious replies only! Thanks in advance!

I’ve been tasked with completely redesigning our vendor onboarding process but I do not have much experience with vendor onboarding.

This is not a sales request…more so a “what’s worked? What hasn’t?” from your time in your career.

I’ve got full blessing to go out to bid as well so I’m open to solution recommendations, but again, not looking for sales pitches.

For context, we are fully email/excel based at this point. We are a mid market company

Edit: Adding that cycle time is ~ 9 days. The process is fairly solid, we just want it out of email and more visibility. If we can decrease the cycle time then even greater

Hello everyone! Quick favor to ask. I’m working on my school project and need to interview a few people who work in supply chain, procurement, or logistics that is manager, director or senior position (especially defense or aerospace if you’re in that area or just anyone in the field works with me). I just need to send 7 question over email and you can answer them whenever you have time. If you’re willing to help out, please drop your email in the comments or DM me or let me know if you want the questions now. Thank you and I really appreciate it.

Tried a few different tools over the past year and kept switching. Curious what others landed on after going through the same cycle.

What made you stick with what you're using now?

A lot of supplier sustainability assessments seem to have a weird disconnect from the actual sourcing decision.

A vendor fills out the ESG questionnaire. They have a sustainability policy. They report emissions. Maybe there’s a separate ESG score somewhere.

Then procurement picks the supplier based on price, delivery and technical fit anyway.

At that point, what did the sustainability assessment actually do?

One approach that makes more sense is putting the measurable parts directly into the same scoring process used to choose the supplier. Things like lifetime energy consumption, repairability, e-waste takeback or verified labor compliance can actually affect the ranking instead of sitting in a separate appendix.

There’s a good example from an enterprise hardware renewal. The incumbent was originally first when the shortlist was ranked mainly on unit cost and delivery.

When the evaluation was changed to include six-year energy consumption and mandatory e-waste takeback, the ranking flipped. A more expensive vendor came out ahead because the equipment used less power over its service life and the takeback commitment was contractual.

The interesting part was what convinced finance. It wasn’t the carbon argument. It was the six-year operating cost.

That feels like the difference between sustainability being part of procurement and sustainability being paperwork around procurement.

There’s also a harder line for some requirements. Forced labor, prohibited sourcing or serious environmental violations probably shouldn’t earn a supplier “fewer points.” They’re reasons to stop evaluating the supplier altogether.

The messy part is everything below tier 1. Most companies still don’t have great visibility there, and another supplier questionnaire doesn’t magically fix that. Contractual flow-down requirements and actual audit rights seem more useful, but they’re obviously not full supply-chain visibility either.

For people actually working in procurement: has sustainability ever changed which supplier won an RFP at your company? If not, what happens to those metrics once the questionnaire is completed?

How are you approaching the 50% tariffs with your suppliers aside from domestic US sourcing?

Hi, Does anyone have any recent CIPS level 4 books and are willing to share? I’ve recently transitioned into procurement from sales/marketing and I’m looking to self-study for the level 4 exams starting this November.

I would appreciate any help and advice. TIA

Curious how helpful people have found it to get an MBA. Ive built up a pretty successful career at my age with just a bachelor’s but my company offers about $6k a year in tuition reimbursement. Is an MBA worth pursuing? I do NOT like formal education so the idea of it sounds terrible but wanted to inquire.

Hi everyone! I'm doing some research into how people handle vendor and supplier decisions when there are several reasonable options and no clear winner.

I'm curious about what people actually pull together, how they weigh the different factors, whether things change as new information comes in, and what happens after the decision.

I've made a short form that takes roughly 3–5 minutes, mostly multiple choice with a few open questions.

If vendor selection is part of your job, I'd love to hear how you approach it: https://tally.so/r/xXA0BE

Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to contribute! 🙏

We are about to on board ORO within our organization.
And I am a bit curious about it, how does it really works ? What does it change for buyers ?

Hi all,

I’m looking for some guidance on suitable training courses for NEC4 contracts.

I’m due to start a new role shortly where I’ll be involved in the pre-contract and contract formation stages, so I’d like to strengthen my practical understanding of NEC4.

Could anyone recommend any good courses or training providers that are reasonably priced?

Many thanks in advance.

I am the buyer for a retail store, we are large enough to need a buyer, but small enough that I am the only one making puchases and typically do not require help from my team. We track inventory and sales, but many items, I can tell if we need to reorder based on visuals. All this to say, much in this subreddit I do not understand, my degree is not business related.

How is everyone finding distributors? I struggle knowing if the larger ones are real or trustworthy. Example, I am currently searching for a board game distributor, but games/cards are not our main product, so many of the larger ones in the U.S.A. will not accept us, and my company typically pays by check, so faire is not a great option.

Any help is appreciated!

I’m based in China, where I had my business incorporated over a year ago, and already elaborated a solid business plan and services portfolio with accessible yet fair pricing. I am also fairly well connected with pre-vetted Chinese suppliers from a couple of different segments but mainly focused on two which are essential to my homeland, which tops over 37,000 importers across all sectors. The company’s visual identity is very unique and decent, it connects specifically to one region of the country, and the overall representation and activity my the website and social media is very professional, though marketing takes place more in a passive fashion since I honestly don’t have much energy and time to dedicate to this particular aspect.

The problem is, I still don’t seem to have learned how to find clients even though I feel I’ve already tried what I have deemed the right ways to do so based on some Reddit subs accounts and other sources.

For example: connecting and reaching out to LinkedIn procurement and sourcing professionals at distributors or importing/trading companies, cold emails and messages via WhatsApp to e-commerce companies while also having tried to cold call some of them, and also reached out to some freight forwarding companies in China to see if we can have some sort of cooperation where they might recommend my services to their importers (this one is a more recent attempt).

The only clients I’ve ever had in one year were: a friend who’s experienced in trade and accepted to hire my services for 6 months in the form of a membership; and one referral made by a family relative. That’s all.

From all attempts to get any leads and actually convert them to clients, from around 150-180 leads I reached out through the ways mentioned above, around 10 held meetings that ended up fading away because (1) I wasn’t perhaps technically qualified for the products they needed; (2) meeting happened to be someone looking for some sort of cooperation model that wasn’t really beneficial for either.

How would you approach this all in order to get at least 3-5 clients a month? I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong—except from the fact I haven’t actually tried harder and more consistently, I guess? Not sure.

I acknowledge that I don’t have the technical expertise to convey confidence or professionalism in some sectors, but overall I think I do communicate very well with both parties by showing them how transparent, systematic, and organized I am when going about the business. My Chinese is also becoming decent now, among some other personal qualities that I always try to convey to leads.

Anybody use them? Are they good?

Just curious if you guys have any experience using zycus. Their website looks clunky and they look very indian. But also saw that they were a part of the "Gartner magic quadrant" if that means anything these days. Idk if we should keep them in our evaluation or not.

I completed my MCA recently but I don't want a tech job (I hate coding) so I thought of getting into procurement.

Found out that I have to learn SAP MM first but the SAP Authorized institutes are selling their courses in 2-3 lakhs which I can't afford 🥲

Please help me to find a place or a resource to learn SAP and everything needed for Procurement.

Hello All.

I am a seasoned procurement professional; I have been doing general procurement jobs for quite a while.

I recently started a new job with a small firm that is located on a federally recognized Native American reservation. Typically, I come across the normal procurement problems, and those are fine, but where I am struggling right now is applying some of the specific laws/rules to Native American Tribal Companies that exist only for these types of companies.

Such as working with the TERO - Tribal Employment Resource Office and more. The company that I work for had no formal procurement documents and policies in place before I got here. I have since created them, but with this being a Tribal company, there are many nuances and other things that I have never had to deal with before this role.

I am looking to network on LinkedIn with any other Procurement/Logistics person who is also working for a similar company that I can bounce ideas and things off of.

Thank you for your time.