Procurement Policy

We are often "cold-called" by service providers - many of whom clearly haven't done their research as to what we do and what services we offer. So, to make it crystal clear for those businesses and to explain our procurement policy, we offer the following:

• We would much prefer to support small businesses than the big guys - there's nothing wrong with the big guys but we think they'll survive without our support.
  
  
• We have a "Geelong / Surf Coast-first" policy when we purchase goods and services. We believe in supporting our local community - the community in which we live and work.
  
  
• Where we are unable to source the goods and services in our immediate region, we will then try to actively support other regional Australian businesses. There are so many towns and regional centres that are struggling to survive and we are keen to do what we can to help them.
  
  
• If we are still unable to source the goods and services we need, we then move our purchasing focus to other Australian businesses. We believe that, if we are expecting our business to be supported by Australian businesses, we should do the same to help support our national economy.
  
  
• If we require services that we simply can't source from Australia, then - and only then - will we consider purchasing goods and services from off-shore.
  
  
• We absolutely do not accept unsolicited "opportunities" from external service providers who we don't know. We believe in building relationships before we deal with with a business. So, if we receive an unsolicited "amazing opportunity" email from a business we don't know, we'll simply ignore the approach because we know that they haven't bothered to read this policy. 

We understand that, by doing this, we are probably paying a little more for our goods and services than we absolutely need to but we are OK with that. Low prices are not everything. Knowing that we have done the right thing is much more important.

And finally - and this is targeted at businesses that either pluck our email address off a mailing list they have bought or have done a word search on LinkedIn - please invest some time in understanding what we do BEFORE you create your impersonal email campaign. We are regularly approached by businesses that do exactly what we do (why would we need your services) or others that completely misread our business size and aspirations (if you are working with massive multi-nationals it is most unlikely that we can afford you). It just makes you look unprofessional and silly - and certainly not the kind of business we'd want to work with.

If you are not prepared to invest some time and effort in understanding what we do and whether your approach to us is even relevant, it doesn't bode well for us to work together.