Content area
Full text
1. Introduction
Supplier selection is an important dimension of procurement management (Cebi and Bayraktar, 2003; Huang and Keskar, 2007; Gosling et al., 2010; Khorramshahgol, 2012). In a context that is prompting manufacturing and retailing firms to increasingly concentrate on a few key competencies (new product design, marketing and communication policies, etc.), the use of external resources owned by effective suppliers directly influences the likelihood of gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Although some may consider this question to pertain uniquely to private companies operating in sectors sensitive to outsourcing strategies, such as automotive, microcomputers or aeronautics construction, there is strong evidence to the contrary.
The profitability and efficiency imperatives that increasingly surface in the public sector also intensify the need to select the best suppliers. In a context of deep public spending cuts and efforts to improve services for taxpayers, specifically regarding hospitals, public education and aid for people in difficulty, the importance of choosing the best suppliers can no longer be ignored. Suppliers are actively participating in applying the lean approach, for instance at British hospitals (Radnor et al., 2012). Hawkins et al. (2011) argue that the difference in procurement strategy (how suppliers are treated) between private and public sectors is not great. A number of works explicitly assert that strategies for managing supplier relationships can be borrowed from the private sector to enhance the performance of public sector procurement (Boyne, 2002; Loader, 2010).
Numerous examples illustrate how the supplier selection process has become an essential element of the governance of many components of the public sector, one which fuels the dissemination of many innovations (Hommen and Rolfstam, 2009; Rolfstam et al., 2011). For several years, the French Air Force has outsourced security control at the entry to its bases, for several years. The choice of companies providing this control has clearly generated a long and costly process to choose the company that is best qualified to protect the bases from terrorist attacks; as Glas et al. (2013) underline, supply selection needs to satisfy military demand in terms of required effectiveness (robustness) and efficiency (supply risk).
Supplier selection is a crucial element of supplier relationship management. The more rigorous and structured the selection phase, the stronger the suppliers’ performance. Company profitability and...