Factors influencing industrial buyers’ decisions on supplier selection within the plastics industry in Kenya

Abstract

The objective of this study was to establish the factors influencing industrial buyers’ decisions on supplier selection within the Plastic industry in Kenya. The research also sought to establish the relative importance of these factors to the industrial buyers. The study adopted descriptive research with the target population being industrial buyers in the Plastic industry in Kenya. For the purposes of this study, Plastic manufacturing companies were selected and respondents sampled from these companies The research sampled 25 plastic companies in Kenya and two respondents from each company were heads of procurement and technical managers and data was collected using structured questionnaire. Data was collected and analysed using factor analysis. The results of the research indicated that industrial buyers are more concerned on the basic attributes and attach more importance to them. Five attributes were found to be most important and were valued more important than price. Product quality, supplier reliability, cost reduction, financial credit terms and few suppliers are the five attributes that industrial buyers find most important when deciding on supplier of choice. These attributes will play a great role in influencing the buyers choice of a supplier. The main challenge facing chemical suppliers is bridging the gap between what they assume to be buyers needs and want the buyers actually value.