Why Choose a Supplier with Longevity?
Choosing a supplier is a difficult yet immensely important decision for any business.
According to SafetyCulture, ‘Supplier selection is an important process that sets a foundation for a long-term business-to-business partnership with suppliers that can greatly contribute to the success or failure of a business.’
The right supplier can help you achieve better brand engagement, increase sales and referrals, and can even enable faster growth of your company.
One of the most important considerations when choosing a supplier is whether this company is one that you can trust.
Trust is generally earned rather than granted. Opting for a long-standing operator is good way to ensure you are choosing a company you can trust, but why should longevity imply trust?
Reliability
One of the most obvious benefits of choosing a supplier who has been in business for a long time is that they should come with a certain degree of reliability.
The very fact that the company has survived for a number of years is testament to their ability to withstand the socio-economic challenges that come with long-term practice in any industry.
Their length of time in business will also often mean that they are financially more stable than a younger company, not relying on investment or funding, but financing their own growth and development. This means less input from external sources, and allows the company to put all its focus on optimising its product or operations.
Also available when considering working with an older company is that their success can be tracked over a number of years prior to your interest in them. You can therefore gauge their reactions to times of difficulty. This historical research is unfortunately not possible with a younger company, or one with only a short history to analyse.
In uncertain and tumultuous times such as these, a proven track-record in the face of adversity should be one of the first things companies assess when choosing a supplier, to ensure they will be able to fulfil their obligation.
Experience
Choosing a long-standing company means opting for a supplier that comes with the degree of knowledge and experience that they will have gained in their field, over the years.
This experience allows for a deep understanding of their clients’ requirements and the challenges that they will both face, as well as how to overcome any regular obstacles. Forbes magazine explains, ‘If you don’t truly understand your customers pain points, they will never have a serious interest in your product or service.’
Experienced suppliers can also serve in a consultancy function. In this capacity, they are able to tailor their service to the specific needs of the customer and ensure the product has the best impact.
As a company who has been in our industry for over 25 years, we have been the advisor to many of our clients, helping them to branch out into different types of development projects, such as local authorities venturing into private sales. We have helped our clients based on our knowledge gained over years of practice in these fields and the understanding of the requirements of our developer clients in these sectors.
Standards
For a company to survive a number of years, they must be providing a product or service that meets a certain standard. Businesses are soon tarnished by bad reputations, failing products or for negligible service.
A long-standing supplier is likely to produce what they do, well. They will also benefit from years of harnessing relationships with their own suppliers, which often means they are able to provide a superior product for a more preferable rate than they would have been able to offer in their early years in business.
Quality of product is of great importance when you are choosing a supplier but of course, cost is also a factor. Choosing a supplier who can offer both a quality and a cost-effective solution to your requirements is most often found in a business with a long track record.
Adapting to Changing Times
To stay in business for a long time means to constantly be evolving and bettering your products and services so that they stay relevant to today’s client.
The Motley Fool’s advice is that, ‘Companies that have been around for decades are likely to have the ability to change with the times and even to reinvent themselves when needed.’ This means that a company with a long track record of success has kept up with the demands of the changing times and will help you, with their products and services, to ensure that you are also staying relevant and meeting your clients’ needs and demands.
As we live in a culture that feels like it’s constantly evolving and upgrading its technologies and practices, this ability to adapt is an attractive feature when choosing a supplier.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
While it is true that companies must change with the times in order to stay relevant, this evolution will often need to take place prior to market demands for the new product or service.
The Harvard Business Review argues, ‘While nimble startups chasing the next trend are exciting, the truth is that companies rarely succeed by adapting to market events.’ Companies that stand the test of time have found the means to stay ahead of the trends and even create them in some cases.
The ability to foresee the coming wants and needs of your client base is a skill that can be learned over time. Anticipating these changes can be challenging for companies that have less experience in their industry.
How Longevity has Enabled Us to Stay Relevant
At Classic Folios and Spaciable, we are always evolving our products and services to meet the needs of existing and future clients.
Creating our residential portal, Spaciable, allows us to meet the growing demands of the increasingly tech-savvy customers of our developer partners, fulfilling their desire for instant information available at the tap of a button, while the portal itself is set up for constant evolution through the introduction of new features.
But even our traditional products and services have been re-shaped to adapt with the times. For instance, our offering of a range of Sustainable Welcome Gifts, Sustainability and Community Guides and our accreditation by the NHQB as a Code-compliant content supplier, to ensure our clients comply with the new Code and meet their environmental targets.
With over 25 years’ experience in the homebuilding industry, we have weathered many social and economic storms; developed strategies to overcome difficulties for the industry; and have remained a steady, constant, reliable supplier for our clients over our many years in operation.
To find out how we can help with your tenancy, reservation and/or handover requirements, get in touch at: https://www.classicfolios.com/contact