Digging Into Significant Sourcing Supplier Management Synchronization Part I

In our last post we started to describe the second most significant change to the upcoming Q2 Release of the Spend Matters Solution Map, and that is the introduction of a new common sourcing – supplier management section because you can’t do sourcing without suppliers and you don’t manage suppliers without the ultimate goal of doing business with them

This new section contains the following common sub-categories:

  • Enhanced Information Management for discovery and on-boarding
  • Performance Management for tracking performance
  • Relationship Management for managing the relationship
  • Risk Management for keeping tabs on, and managing, the risk
  • Enhanced Portal for information management and collaboration

And our last post explained why these sub-categories were relevant. Today we’re going to start discussing what’s important to consider in each of these categories.

Enhanced Information Management
There are three main categories of functionality we are looking for:

  • Discovery and the ability to find suppliers beyond the platform
  • On-boarding Support and the ability to get new suppliers quickly into the platform
  • Supply Base Profiling and the ability to create holistic supplier profiles

Performance Management

  • KPIs and the ability to define and manage them
  • Preferred & Blacklisted Suppliers and the ability to define and manage them appropriately

Relationship Management

  • Issue Management and the ability to define, track, and manage issues
  • Plan Management and the ability to define, track, manage, and resolve plans to manage and resolve issues

These are all key capabilities for sourcing and for successful supplier management. Tomorrow we’ll review the last two joint categories.