The 5 Benefits SRM can bring to YOUR Organisation

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) is seen in some cases as the holy grail of supply chain activities. To others its seen as a dark art? However in this article we explore (in no particular order) the 5 key benefits it can bring to your organisation:

1. 💰 Money – It is no secret that developing a closer relationship with your supply chain can reduce the cost to your organisation. Organisations are ran by people, and people thrive on relationships. Having a good one with your supplier can lead to better pricing and increased discounts.
2. 🔭 Innovation – The sales team from the suppliers are usually pretty effective at telling you all about the new products they have, but do they always tell you about the new products you need? One of the great benefits of developing a closer relationship with your supply chain is that it allows you and them to better understand what innovation will help your business. This a.) allows the supplier to better serve your needs and b.) allows you to collaborate and create innovative solutions for your organisations challenges. Win win!
3. 📈 Increased Performance – Fed up of getting grief from the rest of the business for the poor performance of your supply chain? Why not bring those suppliers closer to your business? Through actively building a better relationship with your suppliers you can build better accountability and better mutual understanding of your organisations needs. These two things combined will drive up supplier performance, be that time or quality – or maybe both.
4. 📉 Decreased Risk – Managing risk is key to every organisation, however our risks go much further than just the four walls of our company. The risks that are born within our supply chain are now often as big, or even bigger than the internal risks we have. SRM allows you to work better with your supply chain to manage these and also ensure there are no other unfavourable activities which could come back to bite you.
5. 💪 Increased Flexibility – Suppliers you work more closely with are much more likely to understand the needs of your business, this makes them much more able to react to changes in demand, and if they like you, they may even do this more quickly. On top of this, building on a great supplier relationship is a great way for them to absorb new scope much faster, eliminating in some cases the need to go to market, and improving the time taken to source new requirements.