Defining the role of "Head of Supplier Management"

Risk Management: • Identify and mitigate risks associated with supplier relationships. • Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and implement risk management strategies. Team Leadership: • Lead and develop supplier management teams, providing guidance and support. • Foster a high-performance culture within the teams. Stakeholder Collaboration: • Collaborate with internal stakeholders to align supplier management strategies with overall business goals. • Facilitate communication and collaboration between internal teams and suppliers. Whilst these descriptions do emphasise the strategic nature of supplier relationship management, continuous improvement, and collaboration with internal stakeholders, they overlook the need to create a change programme across the organisation and the skills required to move behaviours from current state to collaborate, nor is there a focus on positioning the organisation as a customer of choice with key suppliers. One of the most critical factors is finding an individual with high emotional intelligence, who can not only lead themselves to drive change but is also capable of choreographing a disparate stakeholder network using behavioural insight and agility. The above role descriptions are functional, and this leads us onto the second point about focus: Getting the right focus for the role Our 15 years of supplier management research has shown that to make supplier management work there are six key pillars that need to be defined and established in the organisation. They are listed in figure one, in ideal order of implementation, and all need to be established to make supplier management successful, you cannot just work on one or two pillars and expect the supplier management programme to work.

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