Your SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) is in a state of flux. It’s a fact. Policies are undocumented. Processes are not automated. Critical interaction data is not captured. And the majority of your employees interacting with your suppliers on a daily basis cannot even identify five of your top ten strategic suppliers. (Finance might hazard a guess, but while dollars spent is an indicator, it’s not a guarantee.)

A strategic supplier is any supplier that supplies products and / or services that are critical to your operations and that cannot be easily replaced by going out to bid to one of three suppliers in the next state. The supplier might get 1 Million annually and might get 100 Million annually. And if you want the best value from that strategic supplier, you have to be a customer of choice.

How do you become a customer of choice? Good SRM. How do you get good SRM? Good processes, and good platforms. That’s why it’s quite appropriate that this year the annual State of Flux research report is centered around technology. In particular, State of Flux will be researching the use of SRM technology globally, the benefits achieved, and implementation best practices for commercial success.

As with previous years, the 75-question survey takes about 20 minutes and all respondents get a free copy of the annual report, released at the end of October. This report has traditionally been the most extensive research on SRM on the global market and is well worth the time investment.

This year, as a bonus, State of Flux will immediately provide all companies that take the survey a benchmark ranking of how well they are doing against their peers based upon the eight years of survey data they have collected and a standardized ranking system that they are able to use. (And if multiple parties from your organization in different roles complete the survey, they will even augment that benchmark ranking with a SWOT analysis.)

The survey is open until July 1, 2016. Take the survey here.