How a publicly traded medical products manufacturer broke free from a decade of broker-managed procurement — gaining direct supplier access across China and India, $200K+ in annual cost savings, and a 9.5× return on investment in just four months.
A publicly traded manufacturer of medical products had long relied on a foreign broker to manage procurement across its Chinese supply base. The arrangement provided short-term operational convenience — but came at a cost: limited visibility into true supplier-level pricing, and a growing vulnerability to single-country risk.
As US tariff policy grew increasingly unpredictable, the concentration of the client's supply base in Mainland China emerged as a pressing financial threat to its bottom line. Facing these challenges, the client approached its broker seeking solutions to offset rising tariff costs and a pathway to diversify into new markets. Those efforts were met with resistance and significant capital expenditure requirements — neither of which made operational or financial sense for a publicly traded company answering to quarterly performance.
Recognizing the need for both true market pricing intelligence and a credible path toward supply chain diversification, the client turned to The ABC Group to conduct a comprehensive re-sourcing initiative. The dual objectives were clear: establish a true competitive pricing baseline across existing categories, and identify qualified alternative suppliers capable of reducing the client's single-country tariff exposure.
After evaluating various approaches — including attempting to leverage both the foreign broker and a foreign-owned sourcing office — the client selected The ABC Group's Asset-Light Supply Chain Management model. This Supply Chain Management as a Service (SCMaaS) approach delivers immediate in-market sourcing capability across multiple geographies without the cost or setup time of opening new offices — and without the intermediary-managed opacity that had defined the prior decade.
Recognizing the time-sensitive nature of the client's tariff exposure, The ABC Group moved quickly to structure and execute a targeted re-sourcing program across five product categories in China and India. Our team began by analyzing the client's existing product portfolio to identify and prioritize SKUs by annual spend, complexity, and supplier market depth. This sequencing allowed our team to direct outreach efficiently — targeting manufacturers best suited to meet the client's technical specifications, quality standards, and regulatory requirements.
Over the course of a four-month engagement, The ABC Group contacted over 200 suppliers and sub-suppliers across both regions. This outreach generated viable price quotes from multiple qualified manufacturers spanning all five product categories. Where documentation gaps created barriers to supplier participation — including missing technical drawings and incomplete material specifications — our team worked proactively to bridge those gaps and maximize quoting activity.
To ensure the client could act immediately on findings, our team developed a centralized costing analysis benchmarking new supplier pricing against current costs across all categories — giving the client meaningful leverage with its existing supply base regardless of whether new suppliers were ultimately onboarded.
The benchmarking gave the client something the broker had never provided: a data-driven view of its actual savings opportunity. That information is not just a sourcing input — it's a negotiation asset. The client could now walk into any conversation with its incumbent supply base equipped with hard pricing intelligence rather than the broker's word.
By executing a disciplined re-sourcing initiative, The ABC Group delivered both immediate financial returns and lasting strategic value for the client.
The project identified more than $200,000 in annual cost savings across five product categories — representing an estimated 9.5× return on investment. Savings were accessible through two paths: onboarding newly qualified suppliers identified through the engagement, or leveraging the competitive pricing data to renegotiate terms with the client's incumbent supply base.
Beyond the financial outcomes, the engagement delivered something the client had lacked for years: true market visibility.
After operating through a broker intermediary for over a decade, the client gained direct access to a vetted pool of manufacturers — complete with detailed supplier profiles, certifications, and production capabilities across China and India. This marked a meaningful transition from opaque, intermediary-managed procurement to direct supplier relationships, giving the client both greater control and long-term optionality over its supply chain.
From a risk management perspective, the project also validated the viability of sourcing in emerging markets such as India — establishing a foundation for longer-term supplier development in that market beyond the immediate cost-reduction objective. The tariff diversification benefit is real and operational, not theoretical.
Collectively, these outcomes positioned the client to make informed, strategic sourcing decisions — equipped with the pricing intelligence, supplier relationships, and market knowledge needed to navigate an increasingly complex global trade environment. The broker is no longer a black box. The client owns the relationships, owns the data, and owns the decision.
A 30-minute working session with one of our principals. Bring your current sourcing arrangement and the categories where you suspect price leakage — we'll give you an honest read on what direct supplier access would actually look like for your organization, including timeline, scope, and the savings opportunity hiding behind the broker's quote sheet. No RFP process required.