How to Become a Supplier for Carnival Cruise Lines

You'll need world-class connections to become a Carnival supplier

A luxury cruise liner filled with vacationing tourists puts down anchor in a Caribbean port. Sunbathers stay put, kids splash around one of the many Carnival Cruise Lines pools and some guests, tired of being on shipboard, head to shore for shopping or a day of snorkeling at a nearby beach. They're having fun. You're breathing into a paper bag because you're on schedule to re-provision the ship with badly needed supplies -- and your window for delivery is only six hours. Such is the day of a vendor contracting with Carnival. It's heady business and not for the faint of heart, but this article can help you decide if this is the business to which you aspire -- with or without sunscreen.

Things You'll Need

• Clear understanding of cruise line provisioning
• One or more products sought by Carnival
• Around-the-world contacts
• Legal and customs clearances
• Licensing to load ships in port
• Central distribution warehouse(s)
• Contract with Carnival
• Access to the line's purchasing and supply chain officials

Instructions

1. Ask yourself these important questions before you do anything else: Do you supply something that only you can provide to Carnival Cruise Lines patrons? Alternately, are the quality and/or prices of your goods better than those currently supplied by another contractor, provisioning agreement and/or long-standing arrangement? Can you get legal and customs clearances to load ships with your product?

2. Understand the enormity of the role a Carnival Cruise Lines supplier must undertake if they land a contract. You will be bidding to supply goods to not just one ship but an entire fleet with docking privileges around the world, so you must have already earmarked a reliable transportation system to get supplies to individual boats in a timely manner as well as warehousing in multiple locations.

3. Contact the current vice president of global supply chain and/or manager of technical purchasing for Carnival Cruise Lines. Whether your product line includes deck chairs, carpet, bedding, plumbing fixtures or food preparation items, you will have to make a formal presentation to the principles overseeing this component of the Carnival Cruise Lines business model. You'll also be assigned to a buyer responsible for assessing and maintaining tabs on total life cycle costs for the product you wish to supply.

4. Be prepared to work within the parameters of Carnival Cruise Lines' five-year (or more) strategic plan. This means you must deal with purveyors already contracted to supply the company with all of the replacement portholes it may need. Even if the product you're trying to place is better than the one currently in use, you may have to wait for a valid contract to expire to replace the goods.

5. Show that you're able to navigate a cruise line's financial picture. Goods and services needed to supply just one ship in Carnival Cruise Lines' family may cost $1 billion per annum. It's not unusual for Carnival staff buyers to concern themselves with purchasing 2,500 to 3,000 SKUs that run the gamut from food to linens, life rafts, chemicals, slot machines, costumes for variety shows and myriad more items. Show buyers that you have a good handle on financial dynamics and you will be taken seriously.

6. Draw up a logistical game plan for supplying, transporting and loading products. On average, it takes four to six hours to load supplies for a 5,000-person cruise (plus huge staff) set to sail on a voyage that can last from seven days to two weeks. A single mishap in the delivery schedule of a supplier could cost Carnival a fortune to replace the delivery you promised. This is the sort of incident that could end your relationship on grounds of a "missed delivery" clause built into typical contracts.

7. Be aware of the fact that Carnival Cruise Lines, like all large maritime shipping companies, leverages its spending by ordering many products directly from manufacturers and under the ship's logo to keep costs down. Signature brands are commonplace and you may not be able to compete with these costs, no matter how low you're able to bid out the job.

8. Anticipate the huge amount of paperwork you'll encounter when you deal with Carnival. Cruise lines are as bureaucratic in nature as huge land-based operations, thus every business arrangement will require requisitions, purchase orders, receivable and payable documentation, contractor agreements and more. Carnival's supply chain management system is particularly complex when it comes to replenishing perishable products.

9. Have emergency backup in place to handle the unexpected. Fresh produce tends to be the most problematic perishable on the high seas, so you will be required to guarantee backup vendors at ports in which Carnival liners dock. As an additional complication, Carnival Corporation has an agreement to supply fresh goods like flowers, fresh bread, fruit and other perishables around the globe to other ocean liners such as Holland America and Princes Cruises. So if you were to contract with the company to handle this traffic, expect be provisioning more than just the Carnival ships with which you contract.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Read more about the massive job of supplying cruise liners here
• Affiliate with the Cruise Lines International Association
• Contact officials at Carnival to start negotiations