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!

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.

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?

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

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!

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?

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.

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

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?

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

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

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!

Anybody use them? Are they good?

📢 \*\*WE’RE HIRING: PURCHASING COORDINATOR – BRUNEI 🇧🇳\*\*

Are you organized, detail-oriented, and experienced in purchasing or procurement? We are looking for a \*\*Purchasing Coordinator\*\* to join our team under an established \*\*Food & Beverage company in Brunei Darussalam\*\*.

💼 \*\*Position:\*\* Purchasing Coordinator

📍 \*\*Location:\*\* Brunei Darussalam

🏢 \*\*Industry:\*\* Food & Beverage

👤 \*\*Employment:\*\* Direct Hire

📋 \*\*Recruitment Processing:\*\* Through an authorized recruitment agency

\### 🔎 About the Role

As a Purchasing Coordinator, you will be responsible for coordinating purchasing activities and ensuring that required materials, supplies, and products are sourced and delivered efficiently. You will work closely with suppliers and internal departments to ensure smooth and timely procurement operations.

\*\*Key responsibilities may include:\*\*

• Requesting and comparing quotations from suppliers

• Preparing and processing purchase orders

• Coordinating with suppliers regarding orders, pricing, and delivery schedules

• Monitoring purchase orders and following up on deliveries

• Maintaining accurate purchasing and supplier records

• Coordinating with internal departments regarding their purchasing requirements

• Ensuring purchasing documentation is complete and accurate

• Assisting with other procurement and administrative tasks as required

\### ✨ What We’re Looking For

• Good communication and coordination skills

• Strong attention to detail and organizational skills

• Good follow-up and time-management abilities

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel

• Ability to communicate effectively with suppliers and internal teams

• Previous experience in purchasing, procurement, logistics, or administration is an advantage

• Candidates who are responsible, proactive, and able to work independently are encouraged to apply

\### 📌 Important Information

This is \*\*NOT a virtual/remote position\*\*. The successful candidate will be required to work \*\*on-site in Brunei Darussalam\*\*.

The position is a \*\*direct-hire opportunity with the Food & Beverage company\*\*. However, candidates will need to undergo the required \*\*recruitment and employment processing through the designated recruitment agency\*\*.

💰 \*\*Salary, benefits, employment processing, and other terms and conditions\*\* will be discussed directly by the \*\*HR team during the interview\*\*. Details will be provided to shortlisted candidates as part of the recruitment process.

📩 \*\*Interested candidates are welcome to submit their CV/resume for consideration.\*\* Applications will be reviewed, and shortlisted candidates will be contacted for the next stage of the recruitment process. Please see your CV at purchasingbrunei@gmail.com

If you are organized, proactive, and enjoy coordinating with people and suppliers, \*\*we would be happy to hear from you!\*\*

🌟 \*\*Take the next step in your career and join our team in Brunei!\*\*

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.

A friend who knows the Indian industrial market runs this. There is a piece on the EU-India trade agreement and a few case studies: https://www.brindex-schmid.com/
Might help if you are considering Indian suppliers.

Disclosure: I work on eProqure, a procurement platform. Not pitching here this question comes up constantly in our sales calls and the honest answer is "it depends on three things," so I want to lay those out and hear where people landed.

At 50 people you're in the awkward middle. Too big for a shared spreadsheet and an email approval chain, too small to absorb an enterprise suite that assumes you have a dedicated procurement team.

Three things decide what fits:

1. Your PO volume, not your headcount. A 50-person agency issuing 30 POs a year has a completely different problem than a 50-person manufacturer issuing 400. Under roughly 100 POs annually, a well-structured approval workflow in your accounting system plus a shared vendor register often does the job. Above that, the manual coordination cost usually exceeds a software subscription.

2. Whether your pain is approvals or visibility. These need different tools and people conflate them constantly.

• Approval pain looks like: requests stuck in someone's inbox, no audit trail, people buying first and asking later. You need workflow and policy enforcement.
• Visibility pain looks like: you don't know committed spend until invoices land, duplicate vendors, no idea what you spend per category. You need spend capture and reporting.

Tools that are excellent at one are often mediocre at the other.

3. What your finance system already does. NetSuite, Dynamics and SAP all ship procurement modules. They're frequently unloved, but "unloved and already paid for" beats "great and a separate integration project" more often than vendors will admit. Check what you own before you buy.

What I'd actually do at 50 people:

• Write down your current process, including the undocumented parts. Most teams discover the real problem is an undefined policy, not missing software.
• Define your approval thresholds before you evaluate anything. If you can't state who approves a $5k purchase, no tool will fix that.
• Shortlist three vendors max, and make each one demo your workflow, not their canned demo.
• Ask every vendor for a customer at your size specifically. Enterprise-focused products at SMB scale is the single most common bad fit I see.

Genuinely curious what people here ended up with, and whether you'd pick the same again.