With external spend in an average company between 60% and 80%, a considerable amount of an organization’s value is dependent upon its supply base. Quality, reliability, and attractiveness are all dependent upon the supplier’s ability to create a quality product for your supply base. Service, repair, and timely customer interactions related to such all rely on the suppliers ability to deliver quality service and quality, timely, communication.
Moreover, the average organization is not only relying on its suppliers to create its value, but is losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of value due to inefficient, and sometimes ineffective, supplier relationship management. For example, a recent study by Vantage Partners found that the top ten performers in SRM reported an average of $298 Million in financial benefits from SRM in 2014. That’s a lot of cash. As summarized in this article titled “unlocking potential value srm through effective governance” over on My Purchasing Center, there is a lot of value to be had by investing in better supplier governance.
For example, companies with good supplier relationships have suppliers who alert them to potential issues or potentially late deliveries at the earliest sign of trouble and jointly work with them to identify a resolution. But this is just the tip of the value iceberg. Joint cost reduction initiatives. Joint innovation. And so on.
But how do you get there? According to the article, the starting points are
- supply base segmentation
- policies and procedures
- alignment with sourcing, category, and contract management
- (designated) executive sponsors
- (designated) relationship managers
- strategic business plans
which is true, but this only addresses three of the six pillars of SRM, namely
- stakeholder engagement & support
- governance & process
- business driver and value
but doesn’t really address the other three pillars of SRM,
- people and skills – talent matters
- information and technologies – platforms enable process
- relationship development and culture – management is just the start
But, fortunately, there’s still time to get a handle on all of this and, more importantly, find out where your organization stacks up with respect to its peers as you still have one week to participate in the 2015 SRM Survey by State of Flux. Taking this survey, which is the most extensive survey out there on SRM, will not only give you first look into the survey results, but also give you first access to what has become the largest, most in-depth, SRM report on the planet. The 2014 SRM Survey Report clocked in at 216 pages of data, results, and expert interpretation and was full of valuable, actionable, insights — including the pillars and the ten essential starting points, not six — that your organization can use to launch an SRM program — and it’s free to all survey participants as well! Moreover, you’ll also get the full 2015 Report as soon as its available – and this will be invaluable as it will be the first report focussing on what a Supply Management organization can do to gain the executive sponsorship and support it needs for success, and the first report written with the C-Suite in mind. You will be able to use it in your quest for purchasing fire.
So don’t delay and take the 2015 SRM Survey today, before it’s too late!
