Single-sourcing – it’s baaaaack! If you’ve read many of my posts, you’ve possibly deduced that I’m an accountant – sort of factual, prone to cost/benefit analyses - in short, a really fun guy! Actually, it’s this background that makes my opinion of the benefits of choosing fewer, reliable, trustworthy suppliers kind of unique – I believe very strongly in the benefits of single-sourcing.

I like a good deal and a fair price – ask anyone who works with me! I don’t want to worry about pricing every time I buy something; I want to trust the entity that I’m dealing with. Additionally, I don’t want to deal with 5 people to take care of my office needs when I can deal with 2 people – time is valuable and I’d rather spend it trying to grow sales than shaving a couple of bucks off my copier bill.

Where can this fit into a typical smaller office? One area is printing. We have worked with as many as four printers at one time; this is costly in terms of man hours managing the relationships, attention to our account due to the importance of our account, and quality issues with some of the low-price printers. Our solution has been to work only with two printers – one is a contract broker who is able to take care of our marketing and stationery needs and one is an actual printer who handles business cards, labels and our newsletter. Both printers appreciate the increase in their business and have given us correspondingly better service, prices and advice – a real win-win for us all.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Next Day can help with your single-sourcing efforts. Next Day can meet all of your office supply needs from folders to pens to binders to staples to toner to furnishings to paper towels to creamer to cookies – all at a fair price and all with the additional savings of less headaches, less travel time and fewer bills to pay.