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Supply chain management is a big deal for manufacturers whose gross margin and profitability would take a hit, or worse, the assembly lines grinding to a halt, if the supply chain was mismanaged. For businesses in the hospitality industry, even if they rely solely on a few almighty vendors, it’s entirely possible for them to tweak the hospitality supply chain for improved bottom line and hotel cost control savings.

The management school aspect of aligning and integrating marketing, demand planning, procurement, sales, accounting and customer experience followed by the optimization of each and every process is beyond the scope of this discussion. However, improving the hospitality supply chain can be quite effective via the good old common sense approach.

Don’t Time Purchasing as if Trading the Financial Market

The most obvious area is purchasing. Placing an order just in time for receiving the order when you need it is sensible for a person living paycheck to paycheck, but in hospitality supply chain management, you should look for the best deals in anticipation of future need. Be on the lookout for advantageous seasonal pricing and special deals on alternative brands that would work just as well. In any event, it’s good for business and peace of mind to never run out of stock… unless there’s a marketing ploy to generate some sort of gimmicky hot item alert.

Monitor Inventory

It’s as if a law of physics that the inventory of supplies always goes missing in the hospitality industry. Although almost all businesses now track the inventory of for-sale items, supplies can often go missing just like that or quicker! Start by instituting a system to match all received items to actual order. Depending on the extent of the problem at your property, having a dedicated inventory manager can easily pay for itself.

Evaluate Outsourcing

Make it a habit of evaluating the pros and cons of offering a service in-house versus outsourcing, and the habit will in time turn into a fun hobby. Having better and more immediate control by doing things in-house is offset by the perceived ease and flexibility of outsourcing. For example, wouldn’t it be fun to evaluate setting up your own valet service for your hotel versus outsourcing it? On the other hand, even full-service hotels these days tend to outsource laundry service, which has proved more flexible and cost effective.

The other consideration for outsourcing is hospitality procurement services. You may be surprised to find that even for small renovations and renovation of limited number of rooms, it often makes both financial and competency sense to outsource hospitality and furnishing solutions.

This is because a leading hospitality procurement company like Curve Hospitality would have the immense buying power and experience to complete the task more efficiently and economically, if not also better.