Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Key to Good Supplier Management

If you had to create a list for the bed rock that a good relationship between an external supplier of third party services and the internal service provider you'd probably hit some (if not all) of the following:

Alignment
Integration
Communication and Information flow
Trust and openness
Shared risk and reward

The list presented here is not earth shattering in terms of a solution, but it is surprising the number of failed supplier relationships can be attributed to a weakness in one of these foundation stones. In particular trust, openness and communication/information flow could be the main offenders.

Time does build a more solid relationship and with the maturity of the relationship comes greater opportunities for both parties to benefit from each other.

These benefits come in the form of systems and processes (including infrastructure, security, networking systems) tending to naturally drift closer in similarity. This creates opportunity for even greater alignment, integration and the associated reduction in risks and costs. Risks and costs that are inherent when a supplier and service provider have to put in place reactionary once-off solutions due to particular issues.

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