Turning Supplier Quoting into a Competitive Advantage

How rethinking supplier pricing and quote workflows reduced costs, accelerated customer responses, and improved conversion.

The Business Challenge

A company processed approximately 15,000 supplier quotes per month in Excel. A 13-person design department managed the manual process, and customer quotes took five days to prepare. Suppliers received an average of three requests for quotation per opportunity and often prepared dozens of quotes to win a single line-item order. The process was costly and slow for both the company and its suppliers.

What We Discovered

Process analysis revealed delays, excess work, and costs with little corresponding value. Discussions with suppliers challenged the assumption that detailed quotation on every request protected supplier margins. One supplier had created more than 18,000 part numbers for one model and employed three people to support quoting—spending more time quoting than manufacturing.

How We Changed the Operating Model

Rather than automating the existing quote cycle, we proposed three fixed-price size ranges covering the full range ordered during the prior six years, plus additional sizes. This replaced repeated one-off quotation with a simpler commercial agreement and gave suppliers greater pricing and workload predictability. Suppliers offered a 20% discount to move to the fixed-price approach.

Business Results

The changes produced a 14.5% reduction in cost of goods sold. Customer quote turnaround dropped from five days to minutes, and the close rate rose from 5% to just over 20%. The design department supporting quoting was reduced from 13 people to one.

Why It Matters

Speed and savings came from removing work that did not create value, rather than making that work faster. By changing the commercial relationship and the decisions behind quoting, the business improved costs, responsiveness, and sales effectiveness together.