In the current market scenario, with the economy slowly recovering from the financial crisis, the time demands greater scrutiny throughout the multi-tiered and extended supply chain. Some companies are beginning to pay more attention to issues, such as supplier financials and inventory management, to improve working capital, while others are going beyond short-term considerations. Some companies are using this opportunity to better understand their supply chains, with a view to enhancing their fundamental strengths and addressing weaknesses that might have been overlooked earlier (Read: Coke, Nike Call Climate Change ‘Commercial Threat’).

With the procurement world talking about the news over supplier failures (Read: Ford USA Maps its Global Supply Chain, Coke Reducing carbon in distribution with their suppliers in France, etc.), supplier innovation, supplier relationship management, conflict minerals rule etc., it is hard to ignore the fact that suppliers are an organization’s partner in success or failure. Another important aspect, which organizations need to focus on, is getting the attention of their suppliers, or to become the ‘customer of choice’ for their key suppliers. It is a two-way street, when an organization appreciates their suppliers’ role in their success, the suppliers, in turn, value this partnership.

This blog series will cover the Best Practices that drive Supplier Management and will discuss how technological processes aid their implementation.
At Zycus we broadly segment Supplier Management into two parts – Supplier Information Management and Supplier Performance Management. Therefore, this blog series will discuss the importance of Best Practices for each of these two functions of Supplier Management.

In the next blog we will discuss in detail about Supplier Information Management, the Best Practices to be followed and the technology enablers that help implement the best practices. So Stay tuned…

Learn More: Vendor Management Guide