ARTICLE
STATE OF FLUX
2014 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
118
e A U C T I O N S & S R M are they MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE?
© 2014 State of Flux
In describing customer-supplier relationships the term partnership has been frequently overused and remains, on many occasions, misused. In the 1990s when the concept of SRM and supplier partnerships first emerged, both were considered by many on the buy side as ‘going soft’.
ARTICLE BY Alan Day, Chairman and Founder of State of Flux.
When suppliers were introduced to the prospect of being regarded as strategic or treated more like partners they began to think this made them ‘untouchable’ and therefore uncompetitive. Even today, the term partnership often evokes thoughts of a cosy and friendly relationship where both parties are considered to be less
choice and doing a great and competitive job for the organisation over subsequent years.
Fundamental to the health of this ongoing relationship is that it should have all the attributes we talk about when we consider the relationship development and culture pillar of SRM. These include openness and transparency, innovation, alignment, trust, collaboration, and behavioural maturity. For us, openness, transparency and trust equate to ‘no surprises’ for either party. This means avoiding the unwelcome surprise for the buy side that the products and services they contracted for are no longer competitively priced, or, reciprocally, for the sell side that the products or services are to be retendered without prior discussion.
State of Flux is pleased to announce our partnership with IBM.
We feel that their leading eSourcing
demanding of each other and where competitiveness is somehow sacrificed.
technology combined with our consulting, change management and training are a winning combination.
Often, from a procurement perspective, we choose to look at the length of the relationship as an indicator that there is an opportunity for savings, rather than viewing it as a positive result of the supplier seeing us as a customer of
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