When we talk about the latest emerging trends in e-procurement these days, Vendor Management and Vendor Collaboration emerge as the major aspects that hold great importance.
We shall be discussing vendor management and collaborations, the value it holds in the business, key benefits of having supplier collaboration. And most important, the perks of having a good relationship with suppliers.
Let’s look at each aspect briefly.
Vendor Management is a well-structured and well-organized process that specifies the set of rules to manage suppliers and witness their visible impact on buyers’ business.
Vendor Management includes: Managing deliverables, designing and developing new processes that can escalate the overall performance from both buyer and supplier end, managing compliance, clear payment terms, and delivery notes.
Whereas, Supplier Collaboration focuses on improving the procurement of goods and services with the collaboration of the vendor and the buyer. Together they work in a collaborative environment to create a smooth communication channel for any process change or settling down discrepancies.
We have seen what vendor collaboration means, and have understood the concept as well. But the key point is how to collaborate with vendors effectively. Let’s check it out.
Here are some of the best ways that can help you to establish goodwill with your vendor teams.
✔ Active Participation – You need to actively participate in all the ongoing activities and show your interest that you’re actively involved in the process. You have to make them feel your presence.
✔ Identify Your Role and Supplier Role – Effective and successful collaboration requires a sense of responsibility from both the vendor and supplier’s end.
✔ Change in Mindset – Effective collaboration helps both parties to establish a bond of trust and thus ensuring a long-term working relationship.
✔ Transparent and Open Communication – Making the correct use of technology like using online platforms for communicating with suppliers makes the whole communication process smooth and transparent.
✔ Build New Relationships – Expand your business network and make new relationships. Reach out to the people in the industry and keep up-to-date with the latest changing requirements of the business world.
Vendor Collaboration has become an essential part of the business world these days. As it is a whole process of granting the vendors the access to review, accept, and reject the Request for Quotations and performing similar operations and changes in Purchase Orders for the invoicing and delivery management.
Whereas you, as a company, collaborate effectively with the vendors and cater to all the requests, responses, and queries on the e-portals for transparent communication, a list of requested goods or services, and the direct response from the supplier’s end.
Supplier collaboration brings you lots of benefits, and having a good relationship with your vendors earns you great value for money. Let’s take a brief look:
✔ Improvement in Business Performance
✔ Smooth Supply-Chain Processes
✔ Win Advantage over Market share
✔ Earn Credibility and Good-will
✔ Reduced Costs & Reduces Price Instability
✔ Outsourcing and third-party collaboration for diverse needs
✔ The margin for Improvement in business process and operations
✔ Constructive Feedback from the buyer’s end helps to improve the supplier’s product quality
✔ Improvement in Logistics Operations upon valuable feedback
You can achieve excellence in supplier collaboration with the use of an e-procurement system. As it brings all the possible options to communicate with your vendor(s) in one place.
■ Ease of communication via e-mail and messages
■ Use of online portal for all the requests correspondence
■ Visible Comparison of Supplier’s Quotations
■ Report the issues/ discrepancies for the dedicated request (if any)
■ Matching Items with specific suppliers
■ The negotiation process is more refined and easier
■ Minimizing invoice delays and keeping a check on the delivery process
■ A proven track record helps you in awarding/ getting orders more likely
■ Helps you to empower your suppliers with self-service
■ Helps you to keep track of the history of all the supplier’s orders for future references
The advantages of having good supplier relationships are visibly seen in the form of improved business processes, long term relationships between purchasers and vendors, but apart from that, we have realized that there’s a broader perspective to that.
A good supplier collaboration helps us to create strong relationships with key suppliers which helps us to sign a long-time contract or make a long-time commitment with them.
The goal is to build mutually beneficial partnerships that work for both parties. rather than just keep on arguing and negotiating over prices.
Similarly, companies can also share their plans and upcoming purchase beforehand so that the potential suppliers know about the demands and can arrange the goods to become able to cater to the demand.
Using e-procurement software helps you to use the online portal where you can communicate and collaborate with the suppliers and all the progress can be tracked. You can initiate, edit, change, and update the request as well. Alongside, suppliers can also communicate with buyers to update them about their latest product catalog, thus increasing the chance of winning the new tender.
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