Taking a 360° Approach to Supplier Management

Ardent Partners has just published a new report focused on Supplier Management.

The fact is that while meeting suppliers is not particularly difficult, finding the rights ones and managing them well is. Heightened volatility in a market that has become increasingly global and increasingly complex means that businesses are more reliant upon their suppliers than ever before. For many procurement organizations, particularly those that are more mature, the greatest opportunities to drive near-term value occur within the supplier management process.

Business in 2014 is remarkably different than it was five years ago and it will be remarkably different five years from now. Product lifecycles are collapsing as are the windows available for businesses to charge a premium for their products and services. Maintaining a market leadership position across an entire business cycle has never been more difficult. To thrive in such a fast-moving environment, industry leaders are placing greater trust in their partners and suppliers as they attempt to turn every market swing to their favor. These enterprises know that no organization, group, or individual has cornered the market on innovation and that their goods and services are improved when their suppliers are operating at an optimal level.

Accordingly, it is no surprise that Ardent Partners’ research* has shown that supplier collaboration is one of the top strategies used by Chief Procurement Officers to drive more value in 2014. But true supplier collaboration requires a change in mindset for most procurement teams and professionals who must reclassify key suppliers as business partners and begin to invest time and resources in improving their partners’ capabilities. The resulting shift in traditional buyer-supplier relationships has created a new set of operating principles and best practices that emphasize collaboration, agility, and innovation that should be modeled across the entire supplier relationship.

What we’re talking about is taking a 360° Approach to Supplier Management and developing a series of best practices across the spectrum that includes Supplier Identification, Supplier Information Management, Suppler Risk Management, and Supplier Performance Management.

Those readers that are interested in this discussion will also be interested in my latest report, Taking a 360° Approach to Supplier Management: A Best Practice Guide which is available from Zycus by clicking on the report title link (registration is required).   

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