American Businessman, Mark Cuban once said, “Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal”.

That’s how any strong business relationship can be defined. When it comes to maintaining a robust supplier relationship management, fostering a solid and reliable partnership makes all the difference for a successful business.

In this post, we will explore the best and most effective ways to manage relationships with suppliers and ensure a reliable supply chain.

Pathway To Improving Your Supplier Relationship Management

The running, maintenance, and expansion of any business in a market depends on a strong supply chain. 

According to Invesp, 79% of companies achieved revenue growth higher than the average in their industry. This is because they maintained high-performing supply chains.

Furthermore, businesses that improved their supply chain processes were able to reduce 15% of supply chain costs, had less than 50% inventory holdings, and added 3x times faster cash to their cash cycles.

If this doesn’t scream the need to improve supplier relationship management, we’re not sure what does! How did these businesses make such huge profits and also escape from spending massively on the supply chain processes? What did they do differently that many businesses are neglecting today? 79% is a large percentage, which is why you should easily be counted in this number.

This is why we’re giving a list of four proven ways that have helped such businesses maintain and strengthen ties with their suppliers.

4 Ways To Improve Supply Chain Management And Triple Your Business Revenue:

1. Treat Suppliers More Like Partners And Less Like Vendors

Everyone needs to feel respected and appreciated for the work they do. It’s the same for your supplier who brings you the goods or transports your products from one point to another. They are real people performing real work, day in and day out. So, put in the effort to make them feel appreciated with personalized and a more human approach.

Mark your calendars regarding their birthdays, gift cards, lunches, holidays, and anniversaries. All of these and even small tokens of appreciation for the work they do. Yes, you’ve got to approach this partnership like a relationship.

Don’t just be part of the good times, but make sure to hear out their concerns as well. Meeting their challenges with solutions can help your supplier relationship go a long way. In the process, you can build the necessary trust and credibility to do business with them.

2. Meet Their Grievances Immediately

When a supplier has an issue with the way business is conducted, do not brush it under the rug. They could be struggling with delayed payments, missing documents, delayed deliveries, poor communication, incorrect inventory estimates, and so on. Several other problems can arise, including poor data management and security, continued data entry errors, poor customer service, incompatible software, etc.

These are not issues to put off for another day. Make sure you address these issues within the same week of the complaint arising. If you are unable to resolve the matter immediately, update and assure the supplier that you are working towards a solution.

Accountability is the core character for any business to flourish. Therefore, be sure to read the contractual agreement to understand what is required from you and the supplier.

3. Maintain To-The-Point And Clear Communication

Clear communication is always a prerequisite when doing business with anyone. This is one of the main reasons that help businesses increase their revenue. As they work towards maintaining a steady communication flow, they do so in the following ways:

-Maintaining daily and regular communication when required

-Meeting up with suppliers to build a stronger relationship

-Maintaining a video conferencing and virtual meetup during emergencies and when meeting in-person is not possible

-Use collaboration tools to communicate internally and externally during rebate management to convey and share agreements

4. Make Sure To Understand How Your Supplier’s Business Work

The last and most important point is to understand how your supplier does business. If you don’t know this then there are likely to be more than often communication clashes. So, to avoid conflicts and to smoothen the flow of doing business, make sure you:

-Understand the supplier company’s mission and value statement which is a good indicator of their working culture.

-Learn about how and why the company was formed and founded.

-Check the channels of communication they use like their social media presence, popularity, presence, activity, etc.

-Take a look at the activities they perform from charity to contributing to social causes.

-Learn more about the supplier’s reputation with past and existing clients similar to your organization.

-Find out about their company goals, new products or services, customer support offerings, target markets, partnerships, and market forecasting.

The four proven ways can help you ensure that you develop a strong supplier relationship. Business growth is set to improve within a month of taking these core steps. To know more about the Supply chain management visit our page Top Management Consulting Firms in Chennai.

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