Suppliers Should a firm attempt to have fewer or more suppliers? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Your initial post should be 200-250 words. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts in a substantive manner. Some ways could include examples, current events, and/or possible outcomes. Respond to Lemeshia Spears post The major advantage of having more suppliers is the fact that it brings about competition between these suppliers. Competition among the suppliers is beneficial to the company seeking supplies because chances are higher of getting better deals, which includes lower prices as the suppliers try to outdo each other (Bohner & Minner 2017). However, having more suppliers has its disadvantages. One of them is the fact that a company with multiple suppliers will buy smaller volumes from different suppliers as compared to buying a considerable supply volume from one supplier. This takes away the economies of scale the company would enjoy if it bought a huge supply volume from one or a few suppliers. The major advantage of having a single or few suppliers is based on economies of scale. When a company is partnering with one or few suppliers, it gets huge volumes of supplies from these suppliers; therefore, the company can benefit in discounts, tailored service delivery, and the orders from that company are taken seriously by the supplier, on the other hand, has one or few suppliers could be disadvantageous. In case the production chain of the supplier who is being depended on is broken, the company in question could face difficulties trying to find another supplier in a fixed period of time. Reference Bohner, C., & Minner, S. (2017). Supplier selection under failure risk, quantity and business volume discounts. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 104, 145-155. Respond to Peggy Harvey post Whether it is better for a company to have fewer or more suppliers depends specifically on the individual company and what works best for them. Some benefit from having fewer suppliers and some benefit from having more suppliers. According to our text Operations mangement (2013; sec 5.4) when company’s use many suppliers it allows them to take advantage of the completion among those suppliers depending on which one performs and provides the best. The text also references having only a few suppliers or even one supplier , and how these partnerships encourage closer relationships among the two. As we know there are always disadvantages to consider when making business choices and interactions. When considering using several suppliers company’s would have to be concerned with not being able to fulfill the requirements needed by so many suppliers. For instance each supplier may have require that they provide a specific amount of services for the company per month. Depending on how business flow is, the company may have difficulties meeting such demands. However the likely disadvantage t.