Patty is the Procurement Manager at a paper manufacturing company.  She has been tasked by the operations group to find new sources for packaging supplies due to quality problems they have been faced with over the last few months.  Patty has identified four prospective suppliers in the industry and has requested that each send their standard contract for review prior to meeting with them.  During this process she found that only one of the four suppliers has a standard contract to send to her.  The other three have nothing and the supplier they used in the past did not have a contract on file either.  Patty needs to identify what the industry standards are and the needs of her operations group so that she can make the best purchasing decision.

• What should Patty do first? 
• What internal resources should she include in her decision making process? 
• At what stage should she involve the operations team in the discussions with suppliers?