Supplier Relationship Management

There s a new buzz phrase in the air: Supplier Relationship Management (SRM). Corporate executives know it s necessary, but there s only one problem. Nobody yet knows how to do it. Or they think it s all about bashing your vendors over the head until they reduce the price another 4%. Supplier Relationship Management: How to Maximize Vendor Value and Opportunity changes all that. §Containing the best and most innovative advice from the operations and procurement experts at consultant AT Kearney, this book shows that SRM is at root a strategic discussion requiring cross-functional interaction and internal alignment at the highest levels. It requires an honest appraisal of the value that suppliers now bring to your firm, as well as their potential value. It then requires a frank and constructive business-to-business dialogue. When this happens, a company reaps myriad benefits, ranging from new opportunity to added value to competitive advantage and, quite likely, to overall (and sometimes substantial) cost reductions. §This book shows the most concrete methods you can use today to: §Analyze and identify value-adding opportunities in the supply chain §Work closely with suppliers to maximize the benefits §Work the crucial cluster where the greatest opportunity for improvement lies §Review suppliers to encourage constant gains in quality and cost §Save money But it takes work to get there. The CEO and other C-level executives, for example, sometimes unwittingly sabotage the efforts made by procurement and operations people to optimize intercompany interaction and gain the most benefits in working with vendors for the long term. And chief procurement officers and procurement personnel aren t blameless, either. The company sees them and often they see themselves as the price reduction guys. But, instead of simply playing vendors off one another or pushing them as far as they will go, people working in the trenches with suppliers can provide many opportunities to obtain more value from vendors in a variety of ways beyond price. And in doing so, they can turn the procurement department into a major competitive advantage for the company. §Supplier Relationship Management also introduces and explains the Supplier Interaction Model, a key tool that will help you get the most from your supplier relationships. It segments the supplier universe into 9 categories, from those you want to run away from fast to those so good and so useful to your organization that it can make sense to invest in them directly. Numerous case studies show how to apply the principles to your situation. §Managing Supplier Relationships burns off the fog that has surrounded the procurement process for far too long. It is the definitive guide for business executives who want to get the maximum benefits from suppliers and gain very real advantages often invisible from the outside over competitors.