How to Make Your Supply Chain Work FOR You

Want A More Productive (and Profitable) Way to Deal with Your Supply Chain?

Supply chains are a completely necessary part of business but oftentimes they are also a source of strife and are typically outmoded. Supply chains usually run on a model that encourages suppliers to underbid one another and eventually the winning supplier will be undercut by another competitor, and so on. My brother Tim English, our VP at Superior Business Solutions, recently wrote a great post that shines a light on a more productive and profitable way to deal with supply chains. Tim drew inspiration from the a blog post from Cerasis, a transportation management company, and the notion of Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), which is on par with the services Superior Business Solutions provides. To check out Tim’s blog post head here or read on to learn a bit more.

1. Long Term Relationships Pay Off – The longer you work with your supplier the more they get to know and understand your needs and the better prepared they are to offer you custom solutions that are a perfect fit.
2. A Supply Chain that Communicates – Under a traditional supply chain, each supplier may simply do their part without even knowing or understanding the bigger picture. The potential problem here is that issues may not be addressed and small problems can go unnoticed (and turn into big problems). When there is structure and accountability, like what you can expect from working with Superior Business Solutions, there is oversight and the supply chain functions efficiently.
3. Build Relationships on Trust – When a company trusts their suppliers, this allows for a flexibility and reliability that is simply not there in a new relationship. Building a long-term and trusting relationship will put your suppliers in a position to best serve your needs.
4. Making Sense of Your Dollars – Through positive supplier relationship management, expenses are reduced since both sides know there is some longevity to this arrangement. Businesses know they are getting a quality product for a good price as is to be expected, and the suppliers know that they will continue to have orders roll in after the most recent order is fulfilled.
5. Document Expectations and Performance – Companies need to identify their needs and when a supplier does not meet these needs, they know what they need to work on in order to possibly land a deal with the company in the future.
6. Transparency is Critical – Customers like to know that the products they used came through a supply chain that is socially and environmentally responsible. A SRM plan clearly documents the supply chain and provides an insight into each step of the process, so it is easy to know where your products came from.

There are so many ways SRM can improve the flow and function of your supply chain and Superior Business Solutions is well versed in how to put SRM to work for your company. To learn more check out Tim’s post.