The procurement time study: what sourcing a rental really takes
We measured the hours teams spend sourcing rentals by phone against posting a single marketplace request.
- 4.2 hrs
- Average time to collect three phone quotes the traditional way
- 22 min
- Median time to first competing quote on a marketplace request
- 9
- Average touchpoints (calls, emails, texts) per phone-sourced rental
Quote collection is the bottleneck
Most sourcing time is not decision time — it is chasing callbacks. Two of three phone quotes require multiple attempts, and availability answers go stale within hours on high-demand categories.
Parallel beats serial
Posting one structured request puts every matched supplier on the clock simultaneously. The first quote typically lands before a single phone call would have connected with a dispatcher.
Paperwork time compounds after the order
COIs, rental agreements, and invoice reconciliation add hours per order when scattered across vendors. Consolidated documents cut post-order administration to minutes.
Methodology
Combines anonymized marketplace timing data with structured interviews of procurement and field teams describing their phone-based sourcing workflows. Time figures reflect medians unless noted.