SS was discussed with al interviewees as how satisfied suppliers were with the buyer-supplier relationship and the execution of an awarded contract. In other words, SS relates to all activities after a public tender contract has been won by a particular supplier and their business relationship is executed. In this phase, the more operational related concepts were discussed with suppliers. Suppliers who have not been awarded a tender by the case companies in the past were not able to answer these questions and were considered as not applicable respondents. Since multiple suppliers had no contract execution (and thus SS) experiences with the case companies, less results were generated for SS.
4.4.1 Antecedents of Supplier Satisfaction
First, a general question was asked to give the interviewee the opportunity of give voice to elements which may not be considered in the research at first. For the sake of clarity, SS explicitly relates to all operational elements after a contract is awarded and thus focusses on the experiences during the execution of the contract. Importantly, SS must not be confused with TA which focusses on operational element until the contract is awarded. In the figure 16 below the identified antecedents of SS are illustrated. As seen in this figure, not as many antecedents were identified for SS as for CA and TA. This is mainly explained by the fact that less specific questions were asked on particular topics but only one open question was presented. In this open question, the suppliers were asked which elements were experienced as important in influencing their perception of SS. Also, one specific question was asked about evaluation of a project impacting SS. Evolving from these two questions six antecedents were found:
First, relational factors were identified as the most important factor influencing the level of SS. 13 suppliers (41,9%) mentioned that relational factors during the execution of a tender project drive SS. Examples of relational factors are proper communication in the form of seeking a mutual acceptable agreement through respectful communication and transparency. Next, the evaluation of projects is recognized as an antecedent of SS by 12 suppliers (38,7%). Suppliers emphasize the importance of extensively evaluating realised tender projects and plead that clients should initiate them more often. Also, they underline that the appropriate people should attend evaluations as also engineers should be present to
discuss the actual project and its result instead of only discussing process related topics with procurement employees. Moreover, consistency in standards was recognized as an antecedent of SS by 5 suppliers (16,1%) which argue that clients should not deviate in their attitude and standards used in tendering procedures like often adjusting tendering procedures. This also goes hand in hand with the usage of
external employees in tendering activities who all take different experiences, habits and stakes with them say suppliers. Finally, 2 suppliers (6,5%) say that the eventual result of the build work evolving from the tendering contract influences a supplier’s perceived level of SS.
Contract management was acknowledged as an influencing factor on SS by 8 suppliers (25,8%) who claimed that the way contract management is conducted heavily influences their perceived level of SS. Most supplier underline that clients who manage a contract for the sake of the end result instead of legally managing every word of the contract (“lees de geest van het contract in plaats van letter van het contract”). They say that the typical contractor – contracting relationship is not desirable. Another example of contract management related factors is the degree of external contract managers who are placed on a project of a client. In general, suppliers do not appreciate if external contract managers are responsible for the relationship with a supplier who often have less affinity with a supplier, the project and manage a contract formally. This negatively impacts SS. 7 suppliers (22,5%) mentioned that the way a client
manages conflicts during the execution of the contract drives SS. When, for example, discussion occurs regarding additional work for a project, the way these issues are resolved influences SS. Essentially, suppliers argue that in a project often things do not go as planned, sometimes the supplier is guilty for the failure and sometimes the buyer conducts a misstep. In subsequent, creating an environment in which such issues are naturally solved is preferred compared to directly resolving them through legislative actions.
FIGURE 16: ANTECEDENTS FOR SUPPLIER SATISFACTION IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN (▲IMPLIES NEWLY IDENTIFIED BY THIS STUDY)
4.4.2 Where does Supplier Satisfaction lead to?
The study on SS has identified several antecedents which influence a supplier in their considerations. Since in the SS stage a business relationship between a purchaser and the contractor has already been established, the antecedents solely impact a supplier’s considerations regarding participation and commitment to tenders in the future. In line of reasoning with the PCS-theory, the SS concept can still be seen as a last quadrant in deciding whether a customer is recognized as a preferred one or not. As discussed in Schiele (2018), relational elements were expected to become more important in the public procurement compared to private sector procurement. Corresponding to this claim, this result also identified relational aspects as the most important antecedent for SS. Thus Schiele’s (2018) finding is acknowledged by this study. Moreover, technical excellence factors identified by Hüttinger et al. (2012) were indeed less substantially
compared to the private sector as R&D or supplier development was not identified at all. Moreover, SS was emphasized as an important antecedent in the PCS concept as bad experiences in tender projects regarding execution of the contract, was explicitly mentioned as a reason to not participate in tenders and interact with certain customers in the future. After all, the core business of most suppliers is enlightened in the SS related phase. In sum, the importance of SS and its impact on suppliers tendering behaviour is of great importance. Despite its direct interaction with purchasing is maybe less obvious compared to the scope of TA, it heavily influences the activities related to the purchasing function such as the PCS phenomena.
TABLE 4: ANSWERING SUB ELEMENT QUESTION 3 Sub-element question 3: Supplier Satisfaction (SS)
What are the key antecedents for Supplier Satisfaction in the infrastructure and construction tendering market and how does it impact the participation and commitment of suppliers in public tenders?
Answer of sub-element question 3: Supplier Satisfaction is mainly influenced by relational factors, quality of evaluation and the way contract management is conducted.