Virtual round-table conducted on 7th April 2020
Jonathan Dutton from PASA noted the following Six Key Takeaways on SUPPLIER COMMUNICATIONS
1. Procurement teams are urgently re-segmenting their supplier base structured around essential v non-essential supply lines.
Often the Top 30 suppliers -v- the tail. And focused on security of supply over cost.
2. This crisis and segmentation criteria is a real opportunity to boost SRM efforts and win the business case for it.
3. Re-collecting KEY CONTACT data for every supplier is critical. With maybe 40% contacts out-of-date, P2P master file data integrity is back under the spotlight.
Is dumping supplier data every 13 months & re-on-boarding them best practice? Should we be using auto-tools to collect data and crisis responses straight into the vendor master-file database?
4. EMPATHY has been described as procurement’s missing skill. In communicating with suppliers, especially SMEs, are you offering any?
Or are you too sending assumptive and one-way instructional and bossy e-mails to people suffering far more than you?
5. Do large customers have any duty of care to small suppliers – especially within their geography, or those long-standing in their supply chain?
6. Tools are needed more when WFH (working from home) … as paper-based processes are quickly finding their limits.
Are desktop tools like POWER BI, Microsoft TEAMS, relevant APPS and the like, good temporary measures until contract management automation is adopted wholesale?
About the Round-Table
How are you optimising your supplier communications. If you have hundreds, or thousands, of suppliers, where do you start? What do you say, to who and when?
Crisis communications is a specialised subject and in a procurement context can be a delicate balance, when teams are reacting to secure vital supply lines, whilst pausing non-operational suppliers. This presents a number of challenges.
The first challenge is to find the right e-mail address for the right person in each supplier and that data may not be in your P2P system, but elsewhere.
Second, segment your supplier base in a new way - perhaps essential supply-lines vs non-essential to start, and considering the risks in your supplier base as everyone's listing will differ.
Thirdly, what to say to which group of suppliers? What do you want from each? How do you allow for small suppliers vs large companies?
Finally, how do you find opportunity to reduce costs in your supplier base currently, whilst maintaining positive supplier relationships?
This virtual round-table will share answers to these questions and point to more nuanced questions, both strategic and tactical.
Your facilitator
This round table will be facilitated by Peter Melville, Practise Lead for Procurement and Commercial Delivery at Pareto Toolbox. With over 15 years of commercial experience across multiple organisations and sectors on both the customer and supplier side, Peter understands the power of great communication, particularly in challenging circumstances.
Pareto Toolbox is a boutique procurement consultancy that is well known and well established in New Zealand. Led by Ross Darrah, the Pareto team of around a dozen people are all dedicated consultants expert in different aspects of procurement management to help you transform your procurement work to unlock and create lasting value.
Details |
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| Download Presentation Slides | |
| Keywords | communication, communications, covid 19, crisis, Supplier management |
| Category | N/A |
| Topic / Interest | Contracting & contract management, SRM, Supplier Performance Management |
| Type | Virtual Round-table Recording |
| Role | N/A |
| Date Entered | 07/04/2020 |
