Growing your business to take on larger, more profitable projects isn’t just a dream. With the proper scaling strategy, it’s an achievable goal.

Scaling refers to all the critical steps needed to prepare your business for growth. It includes streamlining project planning, hiring more staff, and more.

One key element of scaling is optimizing your contractor buying process to ensure you can buy parts and materials for bigger projects.

Let’s look at how to scale and build a more streamlined procurement process to build the strong foundation you need for business success.

Assessing Project Requirements

How is assessing project requirements different for larger jobs? In addition to working on a larger scope, you’ll have to account for customers’ higher expectations regarding quality and compliance.

Structuring the pre-planning process is key:

• Use historical data to draw on past experiences. This is especially important for setting realistic deadlines, considering lead times for the parts you need, and avoiding going over budget.
• Site visits are a key part of this process. Inspecting the site in person will help you better understand the challenges and opportunities unique to the project.
• Communicate with the client as much as possible. It ensures you fully understand their expectations.
• If needed, get help from an outside consultant. Building a network of expert partners will prove valuable as you scale your business.

Centralize Buying

Working on more projects or focusing on more significant projects will increase your buying volume. This change comes with a few risks:

• Buying can become fragmented.
• You might lose visibility over your buying activities.
• Employees are more likely to engage in rogue buying.

You can prevent these buying issues by adopting a centralized procurement process as you scale your business.

With a centralized approach to buying, all your purchases go through an authorized employee or team. There are several benefits to this:

• Centralizing buying creates a more streamlined process with clear best practices in place.
• The individual or team in charge of buying can track all activities. This gives you better visibility into availability, lead times, and costs.
• The authorized employee or team can consistently follow best practices, including the strategies you identify to guarantee the best prices, procure high-quality materials, and obtain the best lead times.

Embrace Bulk Buying

Centralized buying gives you the advantage of tracking current and upcoming buying needs with precision. Using this information to group purchases and buy parts and materials in bulk will bring you closer to a streamlined buying process.

You can also leverage historical data to spot trends and use bulk buying to keep key supplies in stock for future jobs. Imagine securing a job and already having all the supplies you need in stock: Your completion time goes way down, and you can move on to the next job faster.

Buying in larger quantities has several benefits:

• Large orders represent economies of scale for suppliers, making them more likely to negotiate better prices with you.
• Bulk orders command attention from suppliers. You can take advantage of this to secure faster fulfillment terms, reducing your project completion time.
• Bulk buying means placing orders less often, which frees up time for business development activities.

Update Your Best Buying Practices

As you prepare for business growth, it’s a good time to review and update your best contractor buying practices to create a more streamlined process:

• Review the permissions of your buying team. As you grow, you’ll likely need to extend these permissions to more employees.
• Establish a list of preferred contractors with whom you have buying agreements and negotiated prices. This will save you the time and trouble of vetting new contractors.
• You should also create a list of preferred buying platforms and brands to ensure you use quality supplies and buy from partners who guarantee visibility and fast fulfillment times.
• Have a transparent reporting process in place for buying requests and spending.
• Centralizing your buying data is essential. It will give you better visibility into your spending and help you communicate with customers about cost and completion times.

Grow Your Supplier Network

Perform due diligence and add more suppliers to your network. A more extensive supplier network has several advantages as you take on larger jobs:

• It gives you access to a broader selection of parts and materials, including specialized supplies for electrification jobs and more.
• You have backup options if something is out of stock or comes with a longer-than-expected lead time.
• You can shop around for the best prices, reducing costs and boosting profits.

Negotiate Better Terms and Prices

As your business grows, you’ll gain more negotiating power. Take advantage of this by negotiating contracts with your preferred suppliers or changing existing contracts. You can ask for discounts, faster shipping, better payment terms, and other perks. Focusing on fast fulfillment is a sound strategy that ensures you have all the materials needed to complete jobs as quickly as possible, freeing you to move on to your next project.

Once you enter contractual agreements with your preferred suppliers, keep track of the terms you negotiated and ensure your buying team is updated.

Actively managing supplier relationships by communicating with them regularly is also essential.

Use Tech Tools for Better Contractor Buying

Technology adoption is a crucial element of growth. With the right tech solution in place, you can save time on buying and empower your buying team to get more done, freeing up time for other business development activities.

Some tech solutions worth exploring include:

• Inventory management software.
• Spend analysis tools.
• Procurement software.

Scale Your Buying Process With Raiven

Remember that scaling isn’t just about handling more significant projects. It’s about creating efficient and streamlined systems to support your business’s long-term success.

With these buying strategies in place, you’ll be well-positioned to take on more ambitious projects while maintaining profitability and quality standards.

Raiven is here to help you transform your buying process. Between our AI-powered tech tools and our contractor group buying program, joining Raiven gives you access to all the perks you need to streamline buying.

Maximize your cost savings and simplify your procurement operations by joining a premier purchasing program like Raiven. With Raiven, businesses harness collective buying power to realize deep discounts, advantageous service terms, and priority access to critical supply chains. Eliminate the headache of vendor negotiations and enjoy significant reductions in expenses for switchgear, automation controls, lighting, load shedding, tools, wire, conduit, EV charging stations, and more. 

Gain access to pre-negotiated discounts of 7%-30% from industry-leading manufacturers and distributors, including Alpscontrols, ChargePoint, Ferguson, Grainger, Graybar, HD Supply, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Office Depot, Sunbelt Rentals, Schneider Electric, and more!

Raiven supports electrical contractors by delivering unmatched prices on equipment, parts, and maintenance supplies. Our user-friendly purchasing platform ensures seamless and efficient procurement processes.

Visit Raiven to learn more about scaling your buying activities as your contracting business grows.

Summary: Growing your business requires developing stronger systems, including an effective and streamlined buying process. Explore seven strategies to scale your buying process.