Close
Writer: Doruk Babila
Within the scope of Supplier Management, it is an element that should be evaluated for the risks faced by many companies during the implementation, and in this context, awareness should be created in the entire supply organization. The main problem areas and the solution approaches related to them are tried to be summarized below.
The bond established with strategically defined suppliers and the complex interactions developed include many advantages, as well as the potential for the company to be directly exposed to “supplier risk 1 ”.
In this context, it is vital to make risk mapping for the suppliers with whom strategic relations will be developed within the organization. First of all, which unit will take on this role, responsibility and accountability should be addressed, and then the potential risks of the defined strategic relationship and the actions to be taken for these risks should be defined.
As well as the clarity of determining the strategic suppliers and the methods to be used in the relations to be developed with them, it should be clearly determined which managerial processes will be applied after the contract is signed and operations begin, how the executives will take part in these processes, how the relationship management will be carried out and by whom they will be carried out by taking full responsibility within the company.
Agreements to be made with strategic suppliers in this context should not only be seen as a legal process, but should be arranged in a way that not only makes suppliers accountable for their performance, but also encourages them to take action within the scope of continuous improvement. Otherwise, the agreements to be made will be nothing more than agreements where compliance with the factors creating value is lost, on which issues the suppliers are accountable, and which actions should be taken in case of a disagreement.
A strategic supplier concept that is understandable by the entire organization and a set of rules defining a strategic supplier within this framework should be established by the firm. It is important to determine how to differentiate between non-strategic suppliers in terms of relationship management and what to expect from a strategically defined supplier in order to maintain this status.
Clearly defining supplier management processes and roles within the company will prevent suppliers from manipulating processes to their advantage.
Although serious savings opportunities were created with the purchasing initiatives implemented in the first stages, it is seen that these gains often erode with the advancing time, resulting in low ROI 2 . The main reason for this is that the specs are determined at the beginning, consolidating the expenditures and thus eliminating the excessive supplier profit margins, leaving little room for opportunity. At this point, the company should move on to the second phase, identify the structural and own deficiencies of the supplier's own processes, and develop cooperation models by taking the initiative to improve the capacity of the supplier in this context.
In many organizations, daily purchasing operations and supplier management processes are carried out by the same personnel. Although the purchasing personnel are very competent, the desired efficiency cannot be achieved because supplier management requires a different set of knowledge and skills. In addition, the desire of the operational team to do the best for the company / its function prevents the supplier from taking the initiative in terms of taking responsibility and accountability, as it develops the habit of solving the problems themselves. In this context, the separation of daily operation and strategic supply management areas, the necessary knowledge and skills of the personnel who will perform the supplier management function should be evaluated and a “GAP Analysis” 3 should be carried out and a personnel development program should be structured in accordance with the results.
“Supplier Development” activities and criteria should be defined within the system and made visible within the entire supply chain structure.
One of the most important elements for an efficient supplier management practice is system support. Thanks to the system support, a holistic perspective can be achieved and the manual load on the employees can be reduced. The most prominent factor in system support is that supplier data should not stand as separate data islands on company systems. An integrated system should be configured since keeping the supplier performance and evaluation data in a separate place (for example, on the desktop of the employees in Excel Spreadsheets) will create inefficiency in terms of holistic evaluation, while the master data about the suppliers is on SAP.
'The opinions and comments in the articles belong to the author or authors and do not reflect the opinions of Force & Brothers on the subject.'
