A practical guide to assessing supplier price increases, covering how to tell genuine cost pass-through from opportunistic pricing and decide whether to accept, challenge or re-tender with confidence.
Part of the SmartBuyer Procurement Guide Series.
Price rise letters rarely arrive alone, and each one asks for a decision inside a window that is never quite long enough to do the analysis. Most teams triage by instinct, so nobody can say with confidence how much of this year’s increase was genuine and how much was opportunism that slipped past.
This guide gives procurement, finance and budget holder teams a practical seven step process, from logging the letter to reporting the outcome as cost avoidance. It shows how to ask for the evidence, check it against published indices and choose between accepting, challenging and re-tendering.
If any of these describe you, this guide will earn back its 15 minutes.
Most organisations assess price rise letters one at a time, under deadline pressure. Our specialists assess them every day. This guide turns that experience into a practical process you can apply with confidence.
Every SmartBuyer guide is written by an experienced procurement specialist with real, hands-on delivery experience in the category, not theory. Our network of specialists has bought this category for organisations across the public and private sector.
