A Complete Guide To Supplier Relationship Management
There are a number of ways an organization can manage its supplier relationships, from determining how each supplier contributes to its success to developing strategies that will help them perform more efficiently. Supplier relationship management (SRM) is a systematic approach to evaluating vendors that provide goods, materials, and services to an organization.
By implementing SRM disciplines, businesses can monitor the value that suppliers add to the company as well as determine which of them are most crucial for business continuity and performance. Furthermore, it also allows managers to cultivate better relationships with suppliers depending on the importance of the supplier to the company.
Those who work in the areas of procurement, project management, and operations are regularly in contact with suppliers as part of their work. Supplier relationship management is commonly used by those in the supply chain.are
Is Supplier Relationship Management?
By deepening the buyer-supplier relationship, supplier relationship management (SRM) promotes trust and mutual benefit. Managing supplier relationships efficiently can lead to many key benefits, including quality improvements and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), as well as new innovations and improved data flow.
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Strategies
- Communication
Most business failures are caused by poor communication. It can shake the very foundations of your vendor management process if you cannot convey or receive important information from your suppliers.
In order to effectively transmit their requirements and understand their suppliers’ capabilities, corporate buyers need to communicate often with their suppliers.
- Supplier Partnerships
A strategic supplier-buyer relationship is the key to efficient supplier management. In order to make your suppliers feel valuable, the first step is to treat them as such.
Set clear objectives for your relationship with your suppliers rather than simply disclosing predefined KPIs.
Not only will this provide you with access to their expertise, but it will also benefit you in other ways such as gaining trust and receiving preferential treatment.
- Both Parties Can Succeed
You will end up spending more in the long run and compromising quality if you run after short-term cost savings. Consider studying and understanding your vendor’s business rather than squeezing your suppliers to cut costs.
Rather than employing strong-arm tactics, negotiations should be conducted with good faith and value. Both businesses should benefit from the partnership’s objectives if they are structured to provide equal profitability opportunities.
In order to build strong vendor relationships, strong, clear, and easy-to-follow compliance is essential. A key component of your procurement program should be vendor compliance, which increases efficiency, reduces costs, and develops lucrative relationships with your suppliers.
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Best Practices
To decrease the total cost of ownership of their procurement process and to improve the efficiency of their supplier management process, procurement teams should look for best practices and try to implement them to lower the total cost of ownership. The following are three best practices for managing vendor relationships or managing vendor performance that you should follow.
An elaborate system is in place to measure the performance of suppliers in organisations with the best supplier relationship processes. To hold suppliers accountable for their performance, scorecards, ratings, and performance reviews are used.
- Supplier Risk Management
There are a number of risks associated with uncertainty in the supply chain, such as price volatility, demand fluctuations, and others. When vendor contracts are carefully designed, they enable risk sharing, which reduces uncertainty.
- Supplier Trust
There is no question that trust is the cornerstone of a truly effective vendor relationship management process. A buyer that maintains a financial and emotional investment in their vendor’s relationship has a greater chance of winning over their vendors’ trust early in the relationship, and will have a better chance of regaining their trust.
Can Procurement Software Help With Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
Maintaining an up to date vendor database and communicating regularly with them are just a few examples of vendor relationship management. Rather than making your vendors passive partners in your business, this process actually helps you get to know them more. Management of vendors involves a variety of tasks, which include things like supplier-onboarding that was fast and efficient, transparent performance reviews, robust risk mitigation measures, and much more.
The use of paper-based vendor management tools, such as paper forms, spreadsheets, and other manual tools, often causes significant problems such as late payments, missed discounts, lost savings opportunities, and strained vendor relationships.