INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY
STATE OF FLUX
2014 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
148
Figure 5.0. Technology being used to enable and support SRM – all respondents 2012 / 2013 / 2014
Figure 5.1. Technology being used to enable and support SRM – leaders / fast followers / followers
50%
50%
Don't know Not at all Not much Moderately Signi cantly
○ SIGNIFICANTLY ○ MODERATELY ○ NOT MUCH ○ NOT AT ALL ○ DON'T KNOW
○ LEADER ○ FAST FOLLOWER ○ FOLLOWER
40%
40%
30%
30%
20%
20%
10%
10%
0%
0%
DON'T KNOW NOT AT ALL NOT MUCH MODERATELY SIGNIFICANTLY
2014
2013
2012
© 2014 State of Flux
© 2014 State of Flux
INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY AS AN ENABLER
As in previous years, we combined the following three areas of enquiry in our research: 1. Is technology being used to enable and support the implementation of effective SRM? 2. When it is used, how effectively does it support effective SRM? 3. If it's not performing that task as well as it should, what are the problems being encountered? In addition, this year we have investigated in detail the areas of supplier management which are being enabled by technology. We can see that the degree to which technology is being used has changed little over the last three years, with less than one in ten reporting they make significant use of technology to support their SRM efforts ( figure 5.0 ). The only notable change is that there is a reduction from 27% to 18% of respondents not using any technology at all. If evidence was required that technology is an important tool to help manage supplier relationships more effectively and efficiently, it can be found here ( figure 5.1 ). Both the leader and fast follower groups from our analysis are more than three times more likely to be using technology significantly. It’s also interesting to note that the fast followers seem to be ahead of the overall leaders in this particular area of SRM capability.
Information and technology is without doubt a key enabler to deliver results through SRM. The importance of technology covers a broad spectrum: ö ö Drives structure and consistency across the company both departmental and geographical. ö ö Changes people's behaviour. ö ö Helps with the rigour of managing a relationship and provides an audit trail. ö ö Provides information at your fingertips for monthly or quarterly supplier meetings. ö ö Allows you to collect, analyse and make information available to multiple stakeholders. Enables you to collaborate through effective sharing of information. Our research this year confirms that this continues to be one of the biggest SRM challenges faced by businesses. Information and technology was the only one of the six pillars to actually fall on the capability matrix from 2013 to 2014. It remains the lowest performing area across all pillars, with leaders, fast followers and followers all in the developing phase, while all other respondents are undeveloped. The lack of information and technology systems to truly enable SRM has been regarded as a significant barrier. In this year’s research it is once again reported as the single area making the least progress.
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