Purchasing and Negotiation Training

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

Body Language is an arcane subject that intrigues everyone.  We are all experts in it to various extents.  We usually focus on the signals of others, unaware, until we become self conscious, of the messages we transmit to them

The mastery of Body Language interpretation and control of our own leads to greater success in business negotiation and interpersonal relationships. 

Do these questions ever cross your mind?

• How do you know if he is lying to me?
• What are her gestures saying?
• Am I tipping my hand with my body?
• Do we really transmit more than half of our meaning non-verbally?
• How can I “neutralize” my gestures?

Interpretation of Body Language requires an understanding of the 4 C’s: Clusters, Congruity, Consistency, and Culture.

• Clusters refers to gestures coming in groups to have meaning
• Congruity relates to the situation
• Consistency is between verbal and body languages
• Culture refers to nationality and gender.

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 Here is one quick example you can see on this

video.   

At conventions and meetings, I will ask for the gesture that everyone knows means “I’m not listening to you, I reject that, I don’t care…” which is the arms folded over the chest.  In many of thee meeting halls, the temperature s cool so that gesture could just mean conserving body heat! 

In this on line course, we’ll cover dozens of these and the reasons behind them.   You’ll be educated and entertained.  Order here

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

Professional buyers have long sought a purchasing based negotiation resource.  Every other resource on the market has been written by sales people, lawyers, or academics.  These guys are no help in our profession so a few years ago, I wrote the only book ever written by a purchasing pro for fellow purchasing pros on the subject of negotiation. 

 You’re the Buyer – You Negotiate It is not about tricks and false perceptions.  It is all about the professional purchasing principles of the Total Cost of Ownership. (TCO).   Any idiot can get a lower price; if it doesn’t “woik” (as they say in Brooklyn) when and if you get it, and no one knows nuttin’ when you call for service, was it such a good deal on the price?  

A more daunting challenge is found in the last half of the book.  Communication techniques, personality management advice, laws, and tactics do not come naturally to us as they do to our right brained sales brethren who are gifted in this realm.

Lastly, for the sales pro, wouldn’t you want to know more about how your customer thanks and what motivates him/her to act?  Get a copy for your self and several more for your customers who could use a professional buyer’s education.  Good luck.

Click here for Bob's book and CDs

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Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

As of 01 January 2011, international commerce involving the purchase and sale of goods requires upgrading to Incoterms 2010.  The impact of some of these changes may not turn out as intended but the changes are what they are and we international trade pros must deal with them.  For more details, visit the International Chamber of Commerce Incoterms web site. 

Incoterms deal with many of the practical issues of delivery and risk and specify the goods, price, payment method, risk of ownership, services, and locale of legal jurisdiction.   Fore warned is fore armed.

Some of the most noteable changes are: 

• The Incoterms 2000 DAF (Delivered at Frontier), DES (Delivered Ex-Ship), DEQ (Delivered Ex-Quay) and DDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid) have been eliminated
• Incoterms 2010 DAT (Delivered At Terminal) and DAP (Delivered At Place), have been introduced
• Effectively, DAP replaces DDU. DAP means delivered, neither unloaded at the named place of destination nor cleared for import
• DAT means that the goods are delivered and unloaded at the nominated terminal but not cleared for import
• DAT generally applies to deliveries to bulk or container terminals

Among the more subtle changes:

• Sellers and buyers are now obliged to cooperate documentation
• The allocation for terminal handling charges at the point of arrival have been clarified
• The quaint term EDI has been replaced with references to “electronic records or procedures” which must be used whenever agreed or customary
• Risk and ownership responsibility for cargo security has been addressed

Still other changes are intended to make Incoterms easier to use.  For instance, the  illustrations & pictures are included.

The caveat about explicit invocation of Incoterms is the same as applies in the Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).   Incoterms 2010 must be expressly incorporated into the contract or they will not be observed.

Editor’s Note: Steve writes, speaks, and consults on customer service.

December 9, 1980 was a terrible day because I totaled my car. I loved that car too. It was a 1974 Toyota Corolla. Fortunately, I was not injured in the car accident. It was a dark, rainy night and another driver mistakenly turned left into my car’s path and the collision was unavoidable. As my only mode of transportation, the absence of a car was sure to wreak havoc on my mental stability and mobility. Returning home that fateful night, my thoughts did not dwell on the accident or the future disruption to my usual activities. Instead my mind was consumed by the previous day’s tragedy; John Lennon’s assassination.

John Lennon, whether you loved him or hated him, possessed an inflexible drive to be unique and true to himself. In a world so filled with advertisements which persuade people to forfeit their individuality so they can become like everyone else, it was clear that John Lennon was not playing the forfeiture game. He played the individuality game and he played by his own rules.

His unwillingness to bend and forfeit a piece of himself cost him dearly at various times of his life, but this is also what made him so unique.

To the 77 million Baby Boomers in the United States, John Lennon’s lovely and haunting song, “Happy Christmas” will bring special meaning this season. The song’s slow rhythm and spatial vocal reverb added to the lingering ambiance.

Honesty and integrity has a lasting legacy – whether people agree with you or not. Like John Lennon, service professional who remain true to their ideals of value will be remembered long after a customer is served.

Therefore, when service professionals perform their duties in a perfunctory manner without a smile or a pleasant greeting it may be perceived as incongruent to their employer’s culture and by extension, the company’s brand.

Steve’s World Class Value Pack

Congruency is a powerful business force, because when it is absent from service events, the result is usually a confused or skeptical customer. The skeptical customer thinks, “Something isn’t right here,” and this mind-set makes a customer indifferent and resistant to future cooperation, until hard facts can prove otherwise. This instantaneous customer reaction occurs more often than we think.

Service professionals are urged to be like John Lennon this Christmas season by being true to their company’s culture and keeping the bar high. John Lennon said it in one word; “Imagine.”

Harry Hough, PhD, founder of the American Purchasing Society

Editor’s Note: Dr. Hough is a frequent contributor to this blog.

Subcontracting is a common practice in the construction industry. The general contractor selects individuals or companies to handle who specialize in certain aspects of the construction. For example, the general contractor may hire plumbers, electricians, brick layers. Other types of businesses also subcontract work on a regular basis. The buyer of the finished goods or services may or may not be aware that the work was not handled in its entirety by the primary source. Here are examples of other types of organizations that subcontract work from time to time.

Advertising Agencies

Work that may be subcontracted includes printing, recording, writing, and mailing services. When the buyer allows the agency to purchase such work it is common for the agency to have the invoices marked up by 15%.

Manufactured Product

A manufacturer may subcontract work because of lack of equipment, a certain skill, or for lack of capacity. It is likely that the manufacturer would also markup the purchase cost in any quotation or invoice to the buyer. For example, a producer of a casting might send the casting to a plating company before it is delivered to the customer.

Trading Company

Perhaps not considered subcontracting per se, but it amounts to the same thing. The trading company finds the source and negotiates with the producer. The buyer in the U.S. may not even know the name of the actual producer.

The buyer can prevent subcontracting by stipulating that all work must be performed by the seller. Alternatively, the buyer can allow subcontracting, but require the name of any subcontracted source used as well as a copy of all invoices from the source. Another option is simply to insist on approval of any supplier before being used by the primary contractor.

The advantage of buying all services directly is that the buyer is in control. He or she can shop and negotiate with many sources to obtain what the buyer believes is the best supplier. The buyer can make sure that each source is covered by insurance and operates legally. Also, paying for any markup applied to a subcontracted item by the primary source is avoided.

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The advantage of allowing the primary source to obtain any needed services is that the source may have had more experience selecting organizations that perform the best or that match the technical requirements of the primary supplier. In addition, the buyer can hold the primary source completely responsible for a good completed product.

However, primary suppliers still try to blame their subcontractors for delays or poor quality. If the primary has done the sourcing, he should be held responsible.

Difficulty arises when the primary sends material to another supplier for some intermediate process and then has it returned for completion. Each organization tries to blame the other for improper specifications or poor quality. It is more difficult to resolve when the buyer selected both sources. The primary contractor is responsible when he subcontracted the work.

It is even more important to be aware of subcontracting arrangements if work is to be performed on the buyer’s property. A buyer must make certain that suppliers have workmen’s compensation insurance and sufficient liability coverage. A copy of the policy should be obtained. However, there could be a problem if the supplier hires a subcontractor to perform certain duties and that subcontractor does not have his own coverage. Know who each person working on your property is working for. Make sure you know what insurance coverage they have. Make sure they abide by your company’s safety rules and abide by all government regulations.

You can make it easier to protect yourself from potential undisclosed subcontracting by including a clause on your standard purchase order form that either prohibits it or requires the buyer’s source approval for any subcontracting work. It is still a good idea to discuss this issue with your supplier to avoid any misunderstanding and to emphasize its importance. It is probably better, if time permits, for the buyer to contract with each source directly when dealing with a weak primary contractor.

• Create RFx
• Issue Pos
• Item (Part) number systems to build data bases
• Sort data in various ways

Some packages may have bid analysis and some evaluation capability, but in general these accounting based software systems are very weak (except for the giant software packages or the high profile purchasing specific programs) in reporting and analytics.

The reports available out of the box are not very robust and custom written reports are very expensive.  For the overwhelming preponderance of us, the spend analytics problem is usually resolved by resort to Excel spread sheets that we devise ourselves.

To manage and analyze spend, we must have access to historical data sorted by account, supplier, item (part) number and multiple other fields, the complexity of which depends upon specific needs.

Capability proceeds from creativity

With a little ingenuity, we can design spread sheet solutions to spend analytics needs and make our decisions on the solid ground of dollars and numbers.  Excel can be used to analyze bids, sort and data, convert to charts and graphs, and project trend lines for demand forecasting and replenishment, and many other purposes, even financial analysis of suppliers. At the high end, complex spider graphs for supplier evaluation can be rendered.

At the request of many American Purchasing Society (APS) members and many of you who have contacted me about this very issue, I will soon be creating an online course in collaboration with the APS to fill this gap and provide buying pros with another valuable tool.  There will even be mini-tutorials so even those “Excel averse” among us can come to use and profit by creativity in our profession.

What the course will do

The online course will include sample data bases that engage participants in real time exercises, toggling between the online course and Excel spread sheets on their desktops.  This exercise driven course will demonstrate how to input and maneuver the data in a variety of ways to analyze and make informed decisions.

Participants will be able to save and modify the templates they create in this online course for immediate application at work.

What you can do

This course is under development.  The best education and training addresses market place demands so we want to hear from you on what you would like to see, know, or learn more about.  Please send me an email with your thoughts at RobertMenard@RobertMenard.com

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

From more than half of our economy after WW II to a relative pittance in 2010

In the “Insights column” of the November 2010 edition of Supply Chain Management Review  Dr. Larry Lapide  of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) aroused my long slumbering interests in manufacturing.  His story, “Manufacturing with a Capital “M” struck a reminiscent chord about the heady manufacturing days that drove this economy not so many decades ago.  

As a baby boomer growing up through the 50s and 60s in New England, one of my earliest memories is of a huge five story mill being torn down. That image was replicated hundreds of times over subsequent decades.  Most of those once proud centers of  huge employment that made goods for the US and the world have been converted to banal uses never intended like office condominiums and residences.  

The demise of  US manufacturing has taken with it millions of jobs.  It has also erased some national security capability and not just in terms of hardware.  Lapide points out in his piece that “knowledge, expertise and prowess” have moved overseas with our manufacturing jobs.  As examples, he cites a US apparel maker who had to hire Chinese staff to move a manufacturing plant from China to Mexico and foreign petroleum engineers who were hired for drilling in the US due to lack of talent at home.  

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Where are we going as a country with manufacturing?

 The US once manufactured everything.  Breweries once made their own beer kegs and glass manufactures had their own machine shops.  Those ancient behemoths of manufacturing that once crowded every watercourse in this country first moved south, then south of the border, then overseas.  To bring manufacturing back within our borders, two enormous challenges will take gargantuan efforts to overcome. 

1. Price or external economics
2. Government policy or internal sabotage 

Price or external economics

 The price of goods manufactured in low cost Asian countries is beginning to rise.  An inflection point may come when the rising labor prices in particular, combined with doubts about quality and reliable supply and other costs affects the Total Cost of Ownership  curve. 

 That inflection point is predicted in some quarters to arrive in 2015.  It can arrive much faster if death or personal injury claims arise from toxic or unsafe products.  This has happened with regularity, particularly as concerns China.  What is more, the thriving Asian economies are experiencing growing pains as labor unions and even western customers such as Hewlett Packard  at its multiple FoxConn plants  demand better wages and conditions.  Many western businesses are demanding environmentally friendly  manufacturing practices, which is beginning to level the field with western firms.  

Government policy or internal sabotage 

What is worse, reprehensible anti business government policies have driven and continue to drive business off shore.  Policies that would result from Cap & Trade and EPA ruling by fiat are business killers.  This is to say little of the current administration’s execrable take-over of auto manufacturers, coupled with expropriating the bond holders positions in favor of the unions that contributed to business failures creates a very hostile environment for business in general and manufacturing in particular. 

Quo vadis? 

Up until the Industrial Revolution of the 18^th Century, business was far more agrarian.  Since then , we have arrived at the point that even the agrarian economy is industrialized.  Robert Louis Stevenson said long ago, “Everyone lives by selling something”.  Today’s version of that adage should be, Every one lives by making something” whether that something is a folding carton, a brick, a pharmaceutical tablet, a rifle, or a software program,  

For those who recall the nostalgic days of manufacturing and would like to contribute to the cause in intellectual or monetary ways, please visit  the Manufacturing Executive The Global Community for Manufacturing Leadership

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

At first blush, the answer is obvious, isn’t it?  Well, let’s define the parameters, then we can jump to a conclusion.  Print media includes letters, brochures, catalogs, and virtually every other piece of printed media in which business engages.  Digital media includes the very same material but in electronic form.  

Now we can jump to the conclusion that digital media is way more Sustainable, right –  no paper, no ink, no printing?  However, in conducting extensive research for my latest book in early 2010, Green Purchasing and Sustainability, I learned that virtually every Sustainability argument is not fully settled; indeed, many controversies may not even be clearly defined.  Print versus digital media is but one of those controversies.  

It often comes down to how it is marketed, a truism in all business.  Let’s use the example of electric cars, a hotly disputed Sustainability argument.  Are they greener?  Well, that contention loses its luster when confronted with the fact that these vehicles must be fueled by electricity, the least BTU intensive of all fuels .  What is worse, the electricity fuel is generated in enormous part by power plants that burn fossil fuels, primarily coal.  Add to this calculus the fact that most of the batteries for eclectic cars are manufactured in non eco-friendly countries,  to say little of the replacement and disposal of these heavy metal, environmentally dangerous batteries and the Sustainability claim flips from good to bad.  A similar controversy dogs the print versus electronic media argument. 

The toxicity of computer hardware in production and end of life is a Sustainability issue. Copper, chromium, cadmium, nickel, mercury, and lead, among other metals are essential to computer hardware.  Recovery and the potential for contamination are one issue in the debate.  Another is energy consumption.

Click here for online or CD/print media versions of "Green Purchasing" course

In an EPA  report issued July 2007 in conjunction with its Energy Star program for conservation and efficiency in the electronic world, the EPA reported: “Under current efficiency trends, national energy consumption by servers and data centers could nearly double again in another five years (i.e., by 2011) to more than 100 billion kWh representing a $7.4 billion annual electricity cost.”

 The peak load on the grid from these servers and data centers is estimated to be 7 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to the output of about 15 power plants. The report added that total electricity consumed by servers in U.S. data centers, including requisite cooling, consumed 1.5 percent of the nation’s entire electricity in 2006. An effort is underway to create an Energy Star certification for data centers.

 Data Center Dilemma 

As data centers continue to grow in number and importance, greater efficiencies in IT to conserve energy, while finding more sustainable power sources to meet the nation’s total electricity demand become more important. McKinsey & Co.  reports that data centers worldwide generate roughly half of that of the airline industry – with CO₂ emissions from data centers expected to grow from 80 megatons in 2007 to 340 megatons in 2020.  In an announcement just this week, Facebook  unveiled construction of  its new $450 million data center in North Carolina, the latest in a string of similar projects in that state by companies including Apple, Google, and American Express.

 Email Spam & GHG

In a McAfee  sponsored study conducted by ICF, International , the climate-change effects of email spam were considered – which helps to shed light on legitimate email messaging. Among the findings:

• The average email spam causes emissions equivalent to 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide per message
• In 2008, there were 62 trillion such messages
• All together, all these email messages caused the CO₂ equivalent of driving a car around the Earth 1.6 million times
• Nearly 80 percent of energy consumed associated with spam comes from end users and their computers and mobile devices

 Spam filtering accounts for 16 percent of spam-related energy use – and if everyone and every organization employed spam filtering, the total energy used to deal with spam would be reduced by 75 percent per year.

 According to Institute for Sustainable Communication  article, “Which Medium is More Sustainable? Paper or Digital?” , “Over the next few years it can be expected that lifecycle data and the carbon labeling of all products will move from the margins to the mainstream. In part this will be due to the high priority that the current administration in Washington has placed on carbon cap and trade legislation, and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, there is already broad support for voluntary initiatives such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and Carbon Trust labeling initiative.”

They go on to state in another story that the “pixel vs. paper” controversy is heating up as data centers propagate.  They cite the contention of Dr. Joe Webb,  ‘We have a coal-fired Internet.’ Meaning, we should not forget that all those who tout paperless billing via a the Internet or downloading e-books to their Amazon Kindle reader via the Internet are still using one of millions of computer nodes on a worldwide network which is run off of electricity and which by definition leaves a carbon imprint of a considerably sulfurous sort… ”

Another contention is that for every 2 Megabytes of data moving on the Internet, the energy from a pound of coal is needed to create the necessary kilowatt-hours.

So what do you think?

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

Clients of purchasing and negotiation training and consulting are asking increasingly for coaching services.  This is particularly evident in groups of highly educated subject matter experts who must engage in negotiation due to their specialized knowledge.  For three examples:

• MDs in the bio-life sciences have specific expertise around which negotiations revolve for pharmaceuticals and medical devices
• Input from physicists are essential in the high tech computer and aerospace worlds
• Ph.Ds in chemistry are crucial to agriculture and engineered materials 

What is coaching in the supply chain?

Coaching is sometimes seen as intense interaction with top executive talent.  That can certainly be the case but not in the world of highly educated technical talent.   Coaching is better envisioned in the form of a professional sports team.  There is no shortage of talent and skill, but a marked shortage of knowing how to apply negotiation. 

Highly educated personnel are quite disposed by intellect and experience to acquiring new knowledge but less disposed to the traditional training environment.  Coaching is the best methodology for this demographic. 

More properly expressed the application of coaching techniques enhance the traditional education and training regime.  Technical experts already have exposure to negotiation but little mastery of the process.  They have participated to varying degrees in supplier negotiation and are seeking ways to improve.  The active assistance of a coach with negotiation expertise in can short cut the process for these folks.   Sometimes it’s a matter of closing the gap.  Other times the wrong way must be uninstalled and the right way installed in its place.  

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Smaller group size allows more one on one interaction that facilitates the learning.  This is the essence of coaching.  It addresses individual questions and issues in a non-controversial and supportive fashion.  A typical technique is the Round Table facilitated discussion.  Participants are given an issue of known interest encouraged to raise issues to resolve with the assistance of coworkers and the coach.

 How does it work?

Some highly educated personnel have no understanding of Total Cost of Ownership principles.  They suspect there is more to the negotiation process but do not know how to go about it.  Other individuals believe that since their technical expertise is predominant, they should rule the roost.  Others still conduct negotiations with suppliers with no process whatsoever.  There may be multiple teams on a project, all trying to do their best, but without a unifying strategy.  The usual result is similar to mule teams hitched to four sides of the wagon and pulling as hard as they can until the wheels fall off. 

Where to find a coach?

There are a many organizations providing purchasing education and training, none of which provide coaching.  Purchasing and negotiation trainers and consultants must have the rare combination of training in adult education, content expertise, and speaking talent.  Coaches need all of this and the ability to communicate in small group environments. 

Send me an email and I’ll send back an introduction and references.  We can proceed at your pace.

Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant

Supply chain professionals liken purchasing to “Rodney Dangerfield, “I tell ya, we get no respect.”  This Rodney Dangerfield affliction follows the purchasing profession to the field of software.  Procurement software is a curious beast.  The huge majority of software on the market is fundamentally aimed at enterprise applications.  As such, purchasing, and the supply chain in general, is a neglected category, even though a cogent argument can be made that in business, purchasing is the tail that wags the profit dog. 

In most enterprise wide applications, the purchasing capability tends to be an afterthought.  Sales and accounting are the dominant forces in most enterprise wide software packages save for giants like Oracle, SAP, and others.  The purchasing capability is usually an add-on module that is accounting based and feeble in purchasing capability.  That is, it can typically generate RFx, POs, and interface with accounting but has poor capability in generating purchasing reports and spend analytics.   

Market segmentation

It is not surprising that software has specialty niches just as do most other businesses disciplines.  Enterprise wide packages are available for non-profits, educational institutions, manufacturers, professional service providers, hospitals, construction contractors and many other lines of business can find niche software suppliers customized to their industries. 

With these software packages, purchasing capability tends to be minimum and routine.  Requestors can go to the purchasing home page or portal to request goods and services.  Given approvals and negotiated preferred supplier agreements in place, the request can even be converted to a PO and electronically transmitted to suppliers. 

The notorious short fall of these products is almost always in spend management and analytics. 

 Spend management and analytics

The importance of these features cannot be over emphasized.  Professional buyers must have the ability to create spend report at a click, not by dumping them manually into spread sheets.  At a minimum, these reports include the following functionality. 

Ability to sort and analyze spend by

1. Part Number 
2. Variance report   
3. Supplier Name
4. PO $ Amounts
5. History

Capability for

1. RFx creation
2. PO creation
3. Auto email for advice and approval
4. P-Card, Ghost Card, and P/R card downloads
5. Auto Data Capture (ADC)
6. User friendly searchable data bases for suppliers, item number, keyword, supplier (drop down menus)

Additional features

1. Web based login
2. Inventory  and consumables tracking
3. Reoccurring order management
4. Budget comparison and control
5. Interface with A/P and enterprise software
6. Pre-population of common fields with vendor data
7. Add fields for T’s and C’s that are uploaded by auto text

Auto data capture (ADC) and electronic reporting such as

1. Electronic Shipping Notice ESN)
2. Electronic Receipt Notice
3. Electronic upload to A/P after approval

IT Requirements    check with IT first, then ask the supplier to specify

1. Underlying technology such as cloud based, client server based, on premise installation or other
2. Options such fixed fee with unlimited licenses, subscription based per user
3. Integration with Lightweight Directory Application Protocol (LDAP) required
4. Microsoft SQL server or compatible required
5. Rental” rather than purchase of computing capacity and software
6. Charges for trial period
7. Site installation
8. Support

Part Numbers (P/N) or Item Numbers

Part number terminology is a throw back to the manufacturing days of not so long ago wherein every part in an assembly (Bill of Materials) was assigned a unique identifying number.  In much the same fashion that the typewriter keyboard is the basis for the computer keyboard, the same system still applies in the purchasing world but goes far beyond actual “parts”.  Every purchase, whether tangibles such as furniture, food, computers, etc, and intangibles such as professional services, insurance (Workers Comp, CGL, life, health, etc), various forms of utilities (water, electricity, gas, oil, fire department charges, cable TV, etc), rent, leases, etc, is assigned a part or item number for the purpose of spend analysis.  

 Online demos

These are essential for qualifying or disqualifying potential suppliers.  Insist on demonstration of every reporting feature.  If the supplier is as experienced in purchasing as it represents, there will be a pre-populated data base with extensive information.  The supplier should be able to demonstrate any report you choose.  If the demo is weak, exclude the product.  If it is strong, expect to be surprised with features you did not request like auto bid tabulation and supplier scored card native capability.

No matter how well the demo goes, insist on references and check the references.  The best references will be those that simulate the size and type of organization you represent.   

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Caveats for consultants 

If you are an outside purchasing consultant, you have to repudiate the practice of consultant of some software suppliers that pay commissions and/or for recommendation of products and services.  This practice is unethical, probably illegal, and must be scrupulously avoided.

 In consulting capacities , I have had the good fortune to serve many clients and have learned this lesson; do not ask the client for their budget.  This is not necessary and could taint the process.  You could exclude higher or lower price range potential suppliers on the basis of price alone.  The result may be that the Total Cost of Ownership of the particular supplier or product is recklessly excluded from consideration.  You could also possibly tip your hand.

Because you are not the decision maker, you may face some understandable reluctance.  Explain forthrightly that your job is a combination gate keeper and regulator; you qualify and disqualify suppliers based upon client demands and your expertise and experience. Unqualified candidates cannot get past the gate keeper and therefore do not need to speak to the end customer.  The qualified prospects tend to understand, the others do not. 

Lastly, do not engage in price negotiations at this stage.  Suppliers are justifiably suspicious of the hired gun and will no doubt fear a price chop from the consultant before turning it over to the client for another whack. Focus on qualifying the prospect, the references, and most of al the capability.  There will be time to negotiate later.