The Davidson Difference: Strategic Sourcing and Procurement

In 2022, Davidson Hospitality was ranked the leader in guest satisfaction from JD Power. That standing is a credit to Davidson’s culture being rooted in its passionate commitment to ensure memorable guest experiences by thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope in what we offer. This notion inspired the recent creation of my role and the development of a procurement strategy that offers properties flexibility, transparency, collaboration, and ownership, all of which offer the greatest benefit to the operation and our guests. We achieved a strategy that creates that value through the combination of our partnership with Foodbuy and direct agreements.

Foodbuy delivers a unique combination of exceptional service and procurement solutions that offers a competitive financial advantage, security in programming, and assurance in each property’s unique identity. By becoming familiar with using their unique tools regularly, our hotels can optimize spend on the programs available to them ensuring that they are maximizing value with Foodbuy. From the Results dashboard to the Opportunity Analysis tool, Foodbuy makes data completely transparent to assist in that decision-making process.

Davidson Hospitality differs from the traditional hospitality sourcing programs through the intentional partnerships with preferred suppliers and providing transparency to each program. In addition to utilizing the advantages of Foodbuy, Davidson Hospitality has the flexibility to have enterprise direct agreements and local agreements in place that benefit the diversity of the portfolio. Davidson’s Sourcing team is consistently developing programs directly with manufacturers and distributors in many different disciplines.  Each of these programs through Foodbuy or directly with Davidson is unique in the value they offer your property.  Contracted pricing, rebates, and service KPIs all allow properties to manage those relationships more smoothly while improving cost of goods and services.

The combination of these two pillars enables each property to have their own unique procurement menu, allowing for flexibility within each operation to drive innovation and property-specific personality. Providing transparency to our procurement programming enables each property to take full ownership and drive greater cost savings and alignment. We want to make information and data, for all our programs, a part of the every-day operations. By encouraging the use of the platform, each property can benefit from increased value and participation.

The platform offers competitive financial advantage, security in programming, and assurance in each property’s unique identity. Access to our organized and versatile programs ensures operational and financial benefits are realized. It ultimately allows our property users to get back to their main priority – managing the guest experience – versus the complexity of managing supplier KPIs, bidding, and sourcing products for their operations.

With our continued portfolio growth, we are also expanding the Sourcing team to ensure we can provide our internal customers with all the support they need to continue their best-in-class guest experience.