The Influence Of External And Internal Factors On The Supplier Selection

The Influence of Internal and External factors on the Supplier Selection
A study in the Swedish Furniture Industry

Master Thesis in Business Administration Authors: Nikolaos Chatzidakis Adilson Leite Cancino Tutor: Henrik Agndal

Jönköping

May, 2012

Acknowledgements
We are sincerely and heartily thankful to our supervisor, Henrik Agndal, whose support, encouragement and guidancefrom the preliminary to the concluding level made this thesis possible. We would like to thank all the respondents for taking the time to help us gather data, so that we could obtain tenable results. We are also truly indebted and thankful to Hamid Jafari for his advices. Additionally, we are obliged to many of our colleagues who supported us with their honest criticism and advices during thedevelopment of this thesis.

Nikolaos Chatzidakis

Adilson Leite Cancino

I owe sincere and earnest thankfulness to my thesis partner Adilson for his endeavor through sufficient collaboration in order to complete this work. My heartily appreciation goes to Kostas Leontaridis who supported me through all turbulent times. I owe my deepest gratitude to Theodoros Skevas and Aggelos Theodosiadis fortheir help and guidance. Additionally, I am truly indebted and thankful to Stavros Zafeiridis for his support during this study period. Lastly, and most importantly, I wish to express my love and gratitude to my beloved family - Kostas Chatzidakis, Kyranna Grammenou and Eleni Hatzidaki - for their constant patience, encouragement and support.

Nikolaos Chatzidakis 2012-05-13

Master Thesisin Business Administration
Title: Authors: Tutor: Date: Subject terms: The influence of internal and external factors on the supplier selection. A study in the Swedish Furniture Industry Nikolaos Chatzidakis Adilson Leite Cancino Henrik Agndal 2012-05-13 Internal and External factors, Supplier Selection Criteria and Decisions, Swedish Furniture Industry, Procurement

Abstract
Sweden has aglobal reputation of producing exquisite and functional furniture, and the Swedish industrial design is internationally well-known. The supply of materials is necessary in every company and purchasing is responsible for coordinating and organising the supply. The materials purchased from vendors become one of the most strategic parts of the final product quality in order to reduce complaints andadditional costs generated by low quality of materials. Supplier selection plays a vital role in any company as it represents a significant production of the unity prices as well as enhances organisational price competitiveness. It is essential for companies in the furniture industry and from other industries to take into consideration the internal and external organisational factors that reflect onthe supplier selection process to remain competitive and to gain competitiveness before choosing potential vendors. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse how the internal and external organisational factors are reflected in the supplier selection criteria in the Swedish Furniture Industry. The combination of the two theories in the frame of reference, namely supplier selection process as wellas internal and external organisational factors were utilised in order to accomplish this purpose. This paper is based on the use of a multiple-case study, including six organisations or cases. The type of interview relevant for this research is the “unstructured interviews” as they are informal and are used to explore in depth a general area in which the researchers are interested, also referredas “in-depth interviews”. One of the main outcomes found after analysing the theoretical framework and the gathered data is that quality and delivery time are heading these companies’ ranking lists affecting directly their supplier selection. Another outcome verified by the researchers of this paper is the fact that the case study companies present a decentralised approach where the purchasing...