Leverantörsbytens verkliga kostnad: Mer än bara enhetskostnaden

Sammanfattning: The purchasing department's impact on the companies and its results has grown as more goods and services are purchased from other companies. One of the department's most important tasks is to keep costs down, and therefore are alternative suppliers constantly sought, often in other countries with lower wages. Previous research in the area focuses on relationships between buyers and sellers, how suppliers should be selected, and what supply chains should look like. The research around the termination of supplier relationships, changes to new suppliers, and the effect it has on the operations is limited and therefore interesting to investigate. It is common for companies to switch suppliers solely with the unit price in focus and that this leads to large effects outside the purchasing department that are difficult to predict and quantify and that in some cases leads to reshoring. The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze which costs arise when switching suppliers and to show how the information about these can be used to make better purchasing decisions in the future. Three research questions were formulated to achieve the purpose: what costs arise, what impact does a change of supplier lead to and how can the decision be supported when changing supplier. A case study was done at a manufacturing company in northern Sweden. Semi-structured interviews and observations were carried out within relevant departments and the collected empirical evidence was then compared with previous research in the subject. The case study consisted of both qualitative and quantitative research methods and the approach was abductive. The result shows that supplier changes lead to direct costs for the purchasing department in the form of salaries, travel and system training, and indirect costs in the form of material planning, transport, and extra handling. Furthermore, the risks of major impact on the business are demonstrated if the supplier evaluation is done in an inadequate manner and with too much focus on the unit price. The resulting information can be used to make better decisions in the future by improving supplier evaluation methods, ensuring that review is conducted on all supplier changes, and involving more internal and external departments to get a better overall picture before a decision on a supplier change is made. In the study, a model supporting decision on supplier change has also been developed, which leads to both practical and theoretical contributions.