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The development of an end to end talent and organisational effectiveness approach is still a major challenge.
While SRM is increasingly recognised as a distinct role by more companies, it is not always being supported by the creation of formal job profiles, skills requirements, training solutions and performance management. SRM is having an impact on the way the sell side defines the role of key account managers as the main interface with organisations deploying SRM. Nearly half of sell side respondents said that SRM has changed the way they defined the account manager role. Organisations are increasingly making supplier relationship managers the focal point of the relationship, but also recognise the need for effective teamwork. Nearly seven out of ten buy side organisations are making use of cross functional teams to help manage key supplier relationships. The skills required to deliver effective SRM and real business value are now more fully understood. The biggest gaps are for the relationship manage- ment skills such as influencing, communication, strategic thinking. Investment in training remains one of the areas of SRM making the least progress. Investment has been assessed as inadequate for the last three years. However, increasingly we are seeing a small number of leaders investing in significant SRM training programmes. There is an opportunity for these organisations to gain a competitive advantage as they are better positioned to secure customer of choice benefits such as access the inno- vation, scarce resource and better collaboration.
Highlights SRM is defined as a distinct business discipline in 50% of organisations surveyed, but only 80%have job profiles and 49% have made a skills inventory. Almost half of sell side re- spondents have adjusted their account manager role profiles to accommodate SRM. Cross functional teams are em- ployed by 33% of leaders in all of their strategic relationships. Negotiation and contract / commercial training are the only elements of the SRM skill set requirement where adequate training is in place. 63% of respondents have pro- vided little or no SRM training.
People and skills best practice › › Supplier management is recognised as a formal business discipline and responsi- bilities relating to the role are part of a formal HR agreed role profile. › › The requisite skills and competencies for the role have been defined and a capability assessment has taken place. › › People and skills development takes on an end to end talent development approach incorporating job design, competencies, job branding, hiring, onboarding, multi dimensional training, performance support, performance management, retention and reward.
› › Training is relevant and contextualised to the roleand includes performancecoaching. › › SRM is embedded in personal objectives for both supplier management practi- tioners and members of ‘virtual’ supplier management teams. › › An organisational design is developed to deliver supplier management activity which suits the company and its culture, and is likely to feature properly consti- tuted cross functional teams. › › Governance and process compliance can be monitored and pragmatic inter- ventions are made when appropriate.
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