Stakeholder Engagement & Support
STATE OF FLUX
2014 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
72
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTU STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT & SUPPORT
Pillar executive summary
For SRM to succeed, it must have stakeholder support and it must be regarded as a business change programme rather than a procurement initiative. It should eventually become cultural – i.e. moving beyond a programme into an accepted way of working.
good enough. If a stakeholder is really impacted by SRM, they need to be providing strong and active support for the programme to succeed. A good indicator is whether a stakeholder management plan is in place to drive better engagement. A surprisingly low number of companies have developed these, which we believe is an issue. There is also a lack of accountable executives for key supplier relationships in many companies. Leading companies are far more likely to be gathering feedback from suppliers via a voice of the supplier study, and using the information to direct their SRM and customer of choice strategy. We are seeing more thought going into the design of supplier events to make them a feature of supplier engagement excellence. Our survey addressed the level of engagement and support being reported across three key stakeholder groups: internal senior management and executive population; business and operational teams; and last but not least, suppliers.
SRM is a truly cross-functional and cross- business activity, requiring everyone who impacts the supplier relationship both directly and indirectly to be aligned. Senior stakeholder support is imperative for two reasons. Firstly, senior stakeholders help to ensure the organisation is aligned. The second reason is suppliers feel more valued, and it ensures an ongoing strategic dialogue takes place, including topics such as strategy, innovation and future direction. The results of this year’s research show stakeholder engagement and support across all three groups – senior management and executive, business and operational, and suppliers is far below its optimum level to make SRM work in most organisations. Among leading companies, engagement and support is better, but the number reporting strong and active engagement is still low. We strongly recommend time and effort spent engaging the support of suppliers and business stakeholders – it is absolutely critical.
Both moderate support and a neutral position (which is more akin to passive resistance) are not
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