Dealing With External Suppliers

Note to Mentors

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Unit Purpose and Aims

The purpose of this unit is;

This unit will expose the learner to  methods for dealing with external suppliers such as photographers, printers, programmers and so on. They will also learn about negotiation and management of and with 3rd party suppliers.

Learning Outcomes

Learners will;

1. Know about suppliers and their offerings.

Learners can;

1.1 Evaluate suppliers’ offerings.

1.2 Find appropriate suppliers and/or freelancers

1.3 Understand different working styles and arrangements of different types of creative services suppliers.

2.Understand approaches to doing business with suppliers

2.1 Negotiate contracts for creative services.

2.2 Manage relationships with 3rd parties (freelance and contract)

2.3 Manage cash-flow

2.4 Evaluate performance of suppliers and freelancers.

Learning Tools, Resources & Links

Things that will help the learner develop understanding of this unit;

Mentors  please add your ideas, examples, case studies, links to articles, videos, etc. here.

Down on the shop floor at the printing works

When I was a rookie designer, I was sent on press. It was scary. The only women in the printing works were on reception, in accounts or on calendars. But standing by machine minders taught me respect for what the guys on the shop floor do, what you can and can’t get out of a piece of print and what printers need from designers.

Get respect by knowing what people do, how long things take, providing files and information that give your supplier the best possible chance of doing their job well and expecting good work. And if you don’t know, ask. If you pick good suppliers (and that’s one of the times the network you’ll build comes in handy) they’ll be happy to advise you at the early stages of your project. They know huge amounts of stuff that you don’t. And good working relationships built up over time will often get you out of a hole when unexpected problems crop up.

Know that if you leave no time for things to go horribly wrong, they invariably do. And instead of squeezing a production budget too tight, design smartly to make your spec more economical.

If a job has gone wrong and a supplier wants to put it right, let them: we all screw up from time to time and good companies want a good job as much as you do. But don’t put up with a load of old flannel about why a job has gone wrong. And always say thank-you when it has gone right.

Find freelancers.

Look at D&AD talent pool, look at NABS and Gyant Hydra, which all offer very different services to fit the needs of freelance creatives or generate ideas/problem solving for your specific need.

Contracts

When dealing with external suppliers it is important to be re-assured by contracts, in case a supplier drops out. If you rely on an external supplier’s delivery you want to make sure that they live up to their promises, so it doesn’t come to any production bottlenecks. An in case they drop out you can make sure that they pay for an alternative, and you don’t have to risk the whole project.

Like in the agency’s work environment it is important to have a good relationship with external suppliers, as it is highly likely that you will work on multiple occasions together. It doesn’t really matter if it is a post production studio or a graphic design agency; they all contribute to the process of building a great piece of communication.