“We don’t know who is a genuine supplier or who is buying from suppliers and distributors and then giving supplies to us. There is so much competition going on so we need to find out if we’re dealing with the right supplier for the right product – this is a really big problem now.”
Knowing who you’re dealing with was outlined as a particular issue for buyers in Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Abdul Karim Al Atiq, GM of Coral International Al Khobar, KSA said that in the Saudi market it’s not entirely clear who the real suppliers are.
“They usually come through a middle company,” he said. “There are visa issues in Saudi Arabia so suppliers can’t always come over easily and they have to have agencies representing them.”
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Moh’d Abdulla Al Awadhi, purchasing manager at The Gulf Hotel Bahrain, added that the Bahrain market is very much “a monopoly”. He commented: “It’s very hard to find items; there’s a lot of monopoly in Bahrain so there is one company that everyone buys from. The people need to invest.”
Al Awadhi added that the priority for buyers and suppliers in the lead up to 2020 should be “building trust”.
He said: “As a buyer, I’m not worried about price, it’s the relationship – the trust. When you make a deal, you also make a relationship and if you want to make a good deal you should give the supplier a chance to make a profit so that you get that quality. If you squeeze them it’s no use; you should be fair to them because you’re building a relationship.”
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