Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange

UNIDO establishes Subcontracting and Partnership Exchanges (SPXs) with the objective of helping local enterprises to successfully meet the challenges of globalization and to take advantage of the emerging opportunities that evolve from industrial subcontracting, outsourcing and supply chain opportunities. The UNIDO SPX Network thus serves to provide an important platform for the matchmaking of suppliers and buyers across the globe.

In response to the changing dynamics of international business operations, a host of UNIDO SPX programme methodology and tools serve to validate the service proposition to both prospective buyers and suppliers in the various countries and to complement the matchmaking function of the programme. The SPX Programme approach involves active engagement with the procurement and local sourcing departments of large enterprises, identifying and mapping requirements and generating needs analysis emanating from these procurement strategies and plans. Potential local suppliers, in turn, benefit from rigorous profiling and benchmarking assessments with both exercises based on specific UNIDO developed tools. After conducting adequate enterprise profiling, SPX Centres rely on a newly established management information system which consists of a comprehensive database of supplier profiles from SPX member countries, thereby facilitating information management as well as matchmaking and request for quotation potential. SPX Benchmarking assessment is provided to local firms as a service to help them assess their own competitive position and understand their weaknesses and gaps with respect to buyer expectations. The SPX Benchmarking exercise can thus be used to develop specific enterprise upgrading and investment plans. When benefiting large group of domestic enterprises, benchmarking also provides national development agencies and other stakeholders with the possibility of mapping local industrial capacities at the country level.