2024 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
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“Equipping supplier management stakeholders with the right skills and competencies is essential. ‘Return on relationships’ is, at its heart, founded on building collaboration, transparency and connections with suppliers. Focusing on developing your people will help enable them to better achieve this.”
Research results outline that respondents consider strategic thinking (54%), followed by communication (52%) and the ability to work cross-functionally (44%) to be the most important skills for supplier management. These top three are also the same for Fast Followers and Followers alike. It is only among Leaders that the emphasis shifts towards commercial and contractual expertise (58%) as the two most important skillsets. It is clear that the most significant development area is being able to identify ‘non-traditional’ sources of value. 51% of respondents (and 61% of Leaders) listed this as an area requiring upskilling, which indicates that the full potential for supplier management and the concept of return on relationships still needs to be embedded in employees’ thinking. When examining the provision of supplier management training specifically, 36% of respondents stated that their organisations have implemented this. However where training has occurred in the last 12 months, primary areas of focus have been improving negotiation skills (37%), followed by commercial and contractual expertise (27%), and risk management (24%), notably, none of these skills were stated as being in the top 3 for importance or improvement by all respondents. It is clear that organisations would be better placed ensuring that training time and effort is focused on the skills that are considered most important to meet the businesses’ objectives, but also where the most improvement is required. Conducting a competency assessment prior to commencing training can help focus attention on the right areas. The significance of external training accreditation Whilst all training has the end result of upskilling employees, having the training externally accredited can be a tangible acknowledgement of achievement, and help enhance their professional profile.
Supplier management skills: Importance, improvement areas and training focus Training Focus Improvement Area Importance
Nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) found it either important or very important to have training externally accredited versus just over a third (36%) of respondents being neutral on the importance of having training externally accredited. This could be interpreted in two ways; either Understanding the sales and key account management process 6% 18% 7% Trust building 13% 25% 39% Strategic thinking 19% 49% 54% Risk management 33% 34% 24% Project management 15% 25% 9% Problem-solving 12% 21% 26% Negotiation skills 50% 28% 28% Market and category knowledge 19% 27% 26% Leadership 27% 22% 22%
Influencing skills 16% 31%
highlighting that the importance of accreditation is not fully understood, or organisations are not yet mature enough in their people strategies that this is not yet seen as key, rather being trained and upskilled is more important to respondents at this point in their supplier management journey. 34% Identifying non-traditional areas of value (other than cost savings) 10% 51% 26% General product/service knowledge 9% 11% 7% Facilitation skills 10% 21% 19% Deep product/service knowledge 5% 15% 4% Cross-functional working 16% 33% 44% Communication 28% 34% 52% Commercial and contractual expertise 37% 35% 43% Change management 19% 39% 20%
Lead with expert knowledge Do you have the skills to lead supplier management change in your organisation? Our SRM Expert training course is designed for leaders like you, blending advanced strategies with practical skills. Apply what you learn directly to your supplier relationships and lead with confidence. Learn more. https://srm.stateofflux.co.uk/expert-srm-training
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