Considering the Suppliers’ Perspective
Why listening to the voice of the supplier is beneficial for all.
Watch the IntroductionConsider the Suppliers’ Perspective to Remove Friction and Become a Customer-of-Choice
The disruptive events at the beginning of the decade have made many organizations realize how dependent they are on all of their suppliers, not just the strategic few.
According to Dr. Elouise Epstein, Partner at Kearney, “The way we work with suppliers has to change. “Traditional technology is wholly inadequate to support the digital evolution. There is a mountain, an overwhelming amount of evidence, to say that the way we’ve done it in the past doesn’t work. It’s abundantly clear that we have to do something different.”
This has led to businesses moving away from the more traditional, Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), to a more holistic approach, Supplier Experience Management (SXM), which shifts the focus from simple cost-savings to enabling all suppliers to do their best work and setting them up for success.
These organizations understand that:
- They themselves cannot be successful if their suppliers are not successful
- By taking care of their suppliers, the suppliers will return the favor
- Their suppliers must be seen and treated as an extension of the organization, in order to become a customer-of-choice
61%
of suppliers say, “We find it challenging to do our best work for this customer.”
8.4
is the average number of systems a supplier has to log in to to serve their most important customers.
60%
of suppliers in the survey stated they spend too much time on administrative tasks for their most important customers.
47%
of suppliers say they find it difficult to resolve queries with their most important customers.
Suppliers’ Perspective: Why it Matters?
Why care about your suppliers’ perspective?
Part of adopting Supplier Experience Management (SXM) is about considering the suppliers’ perspective, asking them about their opinion, and listening to what they have to say.
Supplier experience is currently full of friction points, it is not integrated and it’s difficult. On the other hand, employee experience models have proven to be successful and effective in removing various friction points. By adapting the theory and conceptualizing it, the suppliers’ experience can be greatly improved. In turn, the buying organizations themselves reap the benefits.
Learning about the suppliers’ perspective is more than sending out a generic annual survey; it is about developing personalized relationships with suppliers and tailoring their experience accordingly.
Caring about the suppliers’ perspective and personalizing their experience accordingly, ultimately, benefits the buying organization. If they provide a great experience to their suppliers, buying organizations can expect to become a customer-of-choice which comes with various benefits, such as:
- Lower prices and better service
- Greater levels of collaboration
- Higher supplier engagement
- Better quality of data
- Lower levels of risk
- Higher levels of compliance
Negotiating Your Success: Do Your Suppliers Finally Have a Voice?
Joining Procurement Insights’ Jon Hansen is a panel of industry thought leaders who will provide you with an unprecedented view into the buyer-supplier relationship dynamic, including:
· Supplier Relationship Governance and Supplier Experience Management
· Cost, Value, and Impact Modelling
· The New Global Supply Chain Reality (ESG, DE&I, and Geopolitical)
The Voice of the Supplier Survey
In this white paper, we explore the results of the survey, with recommendations for priorities based on the supplier view.
- The survey results from the suppliers’ perspective
- Why considering the suppliers’ experience is important
- What makes or breaks the supplier experience
- The benefits of addressing the suppliers’ perspective
Making the Voice of the Supplier heard
Supplier relationships are currently strained as there is a disconnect between what suppliers want and need, and what buying organizations think they want and need.
Recent HICX’s own Voice of the Supplier Survey, in which we asked over 500 suppliers who serve enterprise customers in the CPG, FMCG, Aerospace and Defense and Energy sectors about their experience serving some of the biggest organizations in the world, revealed interesting insights.
The results speak for themselves:
- Suppliers are not set up for the most successful outcomes
- The technological and cultural aspects to make their experience better are lacking
- Communication is slow, unclear, and non-specific
Did you know:
25% of suppliers said being provided with more relevant information and feedback would improve the relationship between themselves and their most important customers?
Download the Infographic
Get a visual overview of the Voice of the Supplier survey’s key findings:
- How many suppliers have to log into 10+ systems
- How to improve the supplier-buying organizations’ relationships
- How many suppliers would prioritize orders for their most important customers
And much more…
What can you do?
Focusing on the largest, most strategic suppliers is no longer effective. Voice of the Supplier Survey confirmed that suppliers require one-on-one, personalized relationships in order to remove multiple friction points.
It is only natural that a large supplier with hundreds of customers is not going to have the same wants, needs, and experiences as a small business supplier with a few customers. That is why leading organizations are using hyper-segmentation to categorize their suppliers based on various factors in order to be able to provide them with a tailored experience. Some of these factors are:
- Size
- Influence
- Revenue
- Industry
- Goals
Marketing the benefits suppliers would gain in working with the buying organization – such as providing a personalized experience, caring about their perspective and removing various friction points of the relationships – can go a long way in becoming a customer-of-choice.
“I think it is important to view it through the lens of the supplier, because it helps you to better understand the issues as an organization that you might have and fix it in a way that adds a lot of value. Some organizations do not realize that they have problems and that is partially because they are not looking at it through the right lens.”
Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO of HICX
Suppliers’ Perspective Insights & Opinion
An 8 Step Guide to Launching a Supplier Centric Strategy
What is supplier centricity? Being supplier centric means not treating suppliers as a commodity but setting them with the right foundations to do their best work for you. It is a mindset shift that acknowledges that all suppliers, rather than just the strategic few, should have access to a one-to-one style relationship. It also means […]
Procurement ExcellenceSupplier Experience Management (SXM)Suppliers’ Perspective Read nowHow to Realize the Benefits of Supplier Centricity
The benefits of supplier centricity As Adam Brown, Procurement Strategy & Digital Transformation at Maersk puts it, “Procurement needs to play the role of enabler, ensuring that it asserts its role in ‘getting the data shaped up,’ and using its insight and expertise to understand the supplier experience in its entirety.” This means buyers must […]
Suppliers’ PerspectiveVoice of the Supplier Read nowHow to Start Building the Optimal Supplier Experience
Building the Optimal Supplier Experience Providing an optimal supplier experience is only possible through a deep understanding of how your suppliers are expected to interact with an organization and then streamlining those processes in a ‘supplier-centric’ way. From a practical perspective, ‘supplier centricity’ in the context of Supplier Experience Management means removing friction from every […]
Suppliers’ PerspectiveVoice of the Supplier Read nowWhat Causes Friction for Suppliers?
As Adam Brown, Managing Director, Procurement Strategy & Digital Transformation at Maersk, points out in a recent interview with HICX, “The sheer multitude of touchpoints for suppliers when transacting with many large enterprises can create confusion and inefficiencies.” The issue resonates with suppliers. Our recent ‘Voice of the Supplier’ survey revealed that 61% of suppliers […]
Suppliers’ PerspectiveVoice of the Supplier Read now
How the Suppliers’ Perspective Will Reshape Ways of Working
Collaborative mindsets and capabilities Following the recent publication of the HICX’s Voice of the Supplier Survey, in which we asked over 500 suppliers to some of the largest companies in the world about their challenges and recommendations that they have for reducing friction in relationships between enterprises and suppliers, we asked a panel of experts […]
Suppliers’ PerspectiveVoice of the Supplier Watch nowThe Voice of the Supplier Survey: Considering the Suppliers’ Perspective
Considering the suppliers’ perspective The Procurement and Supply Chain industries have gone through many changes in the last couple of years, due to both external and internal factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, adoption of technological advancements, and so on – all in the hopes of making the functions more strategic, efficient […]
Suppliers’ PerspectiveVoice of the Supplier Read nowInfographic: The Voice of the Supplier Survey
This infographic provides a quick summary of the key findings from our recent Voice of the Supplier Survey 2022. The way in which we work with suppliers has to change. Recent events have shown that ‘supplier experience’ is behind other areas, such as customer experience (CX) and employee experience – and this can be damaging […]
Best of BreedSupplier Experience Management (SXM)Suppliers’ Perspective Read now
Negotiating Your Success: Do Your Suppliers Finally Have a Voice?
Ahead of the launch of HICX’s own Voice of the Supplier Survey, in which we asked 500+ large and international suppliers dealing with enterprise customers in the CPG, FMCG, Aerospace Defense and Energy sectors about their experience serving some of the biggest organizations in the world (i.e., those with a revenue of $1 billion or […]
Supplier Experience Management (SXM)Suppliers’ Perspective Watch now
Why Is Supplier Experience Now Such a Key Priority?
The era of Supplier Experience is here Accelerated by recent global events and propelled by today’s need to fundamentally change the way in which organizations interact with their suppliers, there is a realization in the industry that the enterprise-supplier relationship cannot be treated as a zero-sum game. Suppliers as an extension of the organization Instead, […]
Supplier Experience Management (SXM)Suppliers’ Perspective Watch now
Interview with Carmen Erhardt on Supplier Experience Management
In a series of interviews which took place during World Procurement Congress 2022 (WPC) in London, we spoke to a number of thought-leaders and experts from the Procurement and Supply Chain industries about their opinions on Supplier Experience Management (SXM) and the future of Procurement. The theme of this year’s event was ‘Challenging the status […]
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Interview with Adam Brown on Supplier Experience Management
In a series of interviews which took place during World Procurement Congress 2022 (WPC) in London, we spoke to a number of thought-leaders and experts from the Procurement and Supply Chain industries about their opinions on Supplier Experience Management (SXM) and the future of Procurement. The theme of this year’s event was ‘Challenging the status […]
Procurement ExcellenceSupplier Experience Management (SXM) Watch now
Interview with Anthony Payne on Supplier Experience Management
In a series of interviews which took place during World Procurement Congress 2022 (WPC) in London, we spoke to a number of thought-leaders and experts from the Procurement and Supply Chain industries about their opinions on Supplier Experience Management (SXM) and the future of Procurement. The theme of this year’s event was ‘Challenging the status […]
Procurement ExcellenceSupplier Experience Management (SXM) Watch now
Interview with Aleks Hajdas on Supplier Experience Management
In a series of interviews which took place during the World Procurement Congress 2022 (WPC) in London, we spoke to a number of thought-leaders and experts from the Procurement and Supply Chain industries on their opinions on Supplier Experience Management (SXM) and the future of Procurement. The aim of this 3-day congress was to ‘challenge […]
Procurement ExcellenceSupplier Experience Management (SXM) Watch nowContact Us To Continue the Discussion on the Suppliers’ Perspective
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