All About The Why and How of Supplier Management

Managing vendors successfully is the key to success for any business. In this article, we will explore what supplier management and its benefits and the best practices for the same.

Supplier Management:

In simple words, supplier management is maintaining healthy and productive relationships with vendors. This includes every transaction, conversation with a vendor, from contract negotiations to quarterly report sharing, having meetings to discuss the current sales data and analytics. It is taking care of every interaction with your suppliers.

A huge part of vendor management is also to maintain a necessary give and take of information that would benefit both you and your vendor equally. It has to be a symbiotic relationship. Let’s explore why you need supplier management to succeed in your business.

Reasons for Supplier Management:

To Create Long-Term Relationship

Vendors are a crucial part of your business. They provide the products that you promise to your customers. This makes your relationship with them very important. When you work on this relationship by sending them regular updates about how their products are doing, it helps them get better at attending to customer requirements. This is profitable for both, you and the vendor.

Efficiency in Process

Considering the impact your vendors have on your business, it is important that you remain in constant touch with them. Depending on the size of your business, you have to manage one or more than one vendor. Exchanging emails can get a little exhausting for this. To make this more convenient, you can use a supplier management portal, which will make the exchange of relevant information, seamless. It makes the frequent tasks of negotiating prices, maintaining quality checks, and getting delivery updates, easier and faster.

Protects Brand’s Goodwill

Supplier management, when done well can turn those vendors into partners. If your vendors are happy with how you deal with them, they can become promoters of your brand. This way, they can also bring in other vendors to work with you, thus increasing your business network and effectively expanding your business.

Minimizing of Risk

In the fast-paced, competitive world of business, it is necessary that you and your vendors recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses to work accordingly. This requires healthy communication. If you treat your vendor with as much respect as you do your customers, then you should not have any problems. The easiest way to do this effectively is to use a supplier management portal, so that there is no scope of miscommunication that rises from long email threads and missed phone calls.

Now, let’s look at the best practices for Supplier Management:

Best Practices:

Supplier Selection

The importance of the right partner is something everyone knows. It can change how your brand functions. The right partner can give you financial flexibility, loyalty and you can trust them to maintain the quality of products.

Regular Connection

A good practice to maintain is to communicate the tiniest of details to each other. But communication doesn’t have to be on a need to know basis. It can also involve brainstorming ideas, which builds a good long-term relationship.

Vendor Management Portal

Communication is tricky, no matter what. However, when it comes to emails or meetings, they are not always the easiest to do. This is where a vendor management portal can come in handy. It takes the hassle of managing complex and the simplest of the tasks. It connects the right products with the right vendors, which takes the guesswork out of making sure that you contact the right vendor for the right product.

All of your vendors, no matter where they are, geographically, can connect with you via your vendor management portal. With such a portal, it is easier to procure new products too. You can request quotes from various vendors, compare prices that each one has to offer, and then place an order. You can be absolutely sure that you chose the right option from all that are available to you.

Wrapping it up...

A supplier portal can solve all of these managerial responsibilities. All you have to do is find the right supplier portal solutions company and they can get it up and running for you.