interview question - how would you answer?

Sudders

your going to an interview for a department manager within a large retail unit, they ask you the following :

How would you over come issues you have with suppliers?

How would you answer this?

caeler

'Depends on the issues, but I would communicate with them, face to face if possible, if not by telephone but making sure I put something in writing for an audit trail. I would try and understand the issues with a view to resolving them. If I felt the issue became a high risk for the company then I would escalate to my manager'.

Do I get the job?!

ChrisEvanson

Depends on the store. If a large chain then you would presumably raise any issues through head office rather than with the supplier direct?

Sambucus_Nigra

Without more detail, I'd work out what was more important to us on: time, quality or cost, and negotiate on one or other in order to get a successful outcome to our benefit and enabling our dept to function as much as possible. If they were a particularly good supplier and this was becoming an issue, I'd be sitting down with them regularly in order to see what we could do to overcome issues, and look at different ways of resolving the problem to mutual benefit.

For example, I've done this before when X happened and I had to deliver Y so I met with the supplier, and redraughted the agreement, and it meant that just pushing back Z by one day/week meant the supplier could deliver their product on time to us and we moved our working days round, came in over a weekend and still delivered the project on time to our client.

Sudders

Thanks for your help, great answers! It would be a independant store.