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Parker Sproul

Sep 12
SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing Tips

SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing Tips

By Procurement No Comments

Having been an SAP Ariba customer, employee, and now SAP Ariba BPO partner, I have seen many of the pain points of the implementation of this module.

Granted, this list is only three of the major roadblocks we at Premikati have come across, and there are many more challenges that are company specific that we will address via this medium in the near future.

Alas, for now – let’s hit the top 3:

1. Have a solid change management strategy and plan.  

When initiating a top down project, without buy-in, you are at risk for people not adopting the new processes, technology, and communications.

This lack of buy-in decreases your early adoption level and end user acceptance of the new technology and processes – therefore diminishing your success and what should be – a rapid ROI.

2. Develop a strategic supplier on boarding wave plan.

Start with matched SAP Ariba Network suppliers. They are already transacting over the network making for an easy connection.

Next, remember the 80/20 rule. Let’s get the suppliers you do the highest spend with on immediately. This will allow for quick visibility and spend control for the majority of your purchase orders.

Your next target should be strategic commodities.

As far as tail spend, remember that SAP Ariba Spot Buy will revolutionize the way you have dealt with the tail spend that everyone struggles with and should have been “turned on” immediately and effortlessly.

3. Develop a strong compliance message for your suppliers.

Require all suppliers to receive PO’s and submit invoices through the Ariba Network. With Light Enablement, the historical complaints about fees are simply invalid.

Companies who follow this recommendation experience quicker supplier enablement which in turn allows for increased visibility and control of your company’s spend.

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Premikati is a certified Woman Owned Management Consulting and Legal Process Outsourcing firm, and an SAP Ariba Silver Partner, that is specifically tailored to Procurement and Supply Chain.

Sep 12
Contract management from Ariba for $30K

Contract Management from Ariba for $30K?

By Procurement No Comments

When a company decides it has a need for a Contract Management software, the first step is generally to send out an RFI/RFP. A number of weeks and many pages of responses later, the field is generally narrowed to a couple of contenders. Then comes the demos… The team watches each vendor demonstrate their technology, usually with fairly little difference between them. Reporting, templates, clause libraries, redlining, and electronic signatures are usually the top things that everyone wants to see.

At the end of the day, since most of the top tools can all accomplish the same things, two factors typically make the decision. 1) The one that the team deems most “user friendly” and 2) price.

Once implementation is underway, the team starts to realize that they simply aren’t ready with templates and a clause library. Creating those from scratch takes a considerable amount of effort, particularly from an already overburdened legal team. They also realize that redlining might not work quite as easily as it was shown in the demo. These two items are then pushed off to a Phase II (which often never occurs) and the system is basically used as a repository.

The software vendors typically do not have different “levels” of their software at different price points. If you want a “repository only” solution, you would need choose a lower cost, less sophisticated software, effectively eliminating a progression path towards those features such as templates, clause libraries, and redlining that can be beneficial as your organization matures.

With Premikati recently becoming a BPO Partner of SAP Ariba, we have opened up a new set of options.

Premikati can now purchase and operate the SAP Ariba Contract Management Professional software on your behalf. We have two paths, one for Enterprise customers, and another for companies below $500MM in annual revenue.

First, for the Enterprise. Premikati can purchase an individual realm to operate on your behalf. Frankly, our status as a BPO Partner enables us to buy it at a significantly lower price point that you can. Our team will own and operate the system on your behalf, performing Contract Administration Services and, of course, all of the system administrative functions as well. This allows your team to focus its energy on more strategic opportunities, not the tactical day to day activities of keeping track of contracts. When you consider the total cost of ownership, you will be hard pressed to find a service/solution that provides more value for the price.

For companies below $500MM in revenue, we have a whole new way of thinking. 

Since we realize that initially you most likely only need a “repository” with reporting and the ability to do electronic signatures, that is all you are going to pay for.

Depending on a variety of factors, our pricing starts as low as $30K for an annual subscription that includes Contract Administration Services and all system administration.

Implementation is similarly value priced starting at $25K with a Go-Live in as little as two weeks.

This is still for the full version of the Ariba Contract Management Professional system although integration with other systems is not available in this situation. However, during your maturation as an organization, both in revenue and sophistication, we can always move you over to an Enterprise realm with ease and no downtime.

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Premikati is a certified Woman Owned Management Consulting and Legal Process Outsourcing firm, and an SAP Ariba Silver Partner, that is specifically tailored to Procurement and Supply Chain.

Sep 12
SAP silver partner

Changing the Game in Education with Step Up for Students and SAP Ariba

By Press No Comments

Non-profit to launch digital marketplace for simple, efficient administration of scholarships to low-income and special needs students

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Back to school can be a stressful time for parents and students – particularly those with financial and special needs. Step Up For Students is out to change this. The non-profit, which is expected to provide scholarships this fall to about 110,000 qualifying students in the state of Florida, today announced plans for a digital marketplace powered by SAP Ariba through which recipients will be able to purchase education along with associated services and supplies in a simple, consumer-like way.

“Premikati has particular expertise in simplifying complex challenges like these which will be key for a successful program.”

“At Step Up For Students, we don’t believe that quality education should be determined by financial means or disability, and we have made it our mission to give children from lower income families and those with special needs a chance at a brighter future through the scholarships we help to manage,” said Doug Tuthill, President, Step Up For Students.

Fueling Equal Opportunity

To advance this mission, Step Up For Students will leverage SAP Ariba’s cloud-based applications to provide an easy and efficient way for parents and caregivers of scholarship recipients to pursue and engage in the most appropriate learning options for their children. The nonprofit will begin to introduce the platform during the 2017-2018 school year with the goal of full implementation by 2018-2019.

“Education is the great equalizer,” said Alex Atzberger, President, SAP Ariba. “Yet there remains a significant divide in the ability for everyone to capture opportunities to learn. Technology is powerful tool that can change this and we are pleased to be supporting Step Up For Students in their mission to innovate with the purpose of closing this gap.”

Using SAP Ariba® Buying and Invoicing™ and SAP Ariba Commerce Automation™, Step Up For Students will create online catalogs through which scholarship recipients can find, buy and pay for tuition at schools of their choice along with educational services and school supplies with just a few clicks.

Bridging the Digital Divide

The solutions will be accessible anywhere, anytime via any device, including mobile phones – a key factor in Step Up For Students’ selection.

“Many of those we serve lack access to technology in their homes and it was critical that we remove this as a barrier,” said Scott Massey, Chief Information Officer, Step Up For Students.

Enter SAP Ariba partner Premikati. “Step Up for Students has high user counts where the users are not actually employees but rather students and their families,” said Premikati CEO Marisol Buczynski Buchanan. “Premikati has particular expertise in simplifying complex challenges like these which will be key for a successful program.”

SAP Ariba offers a range of solutions that help organizations of all sizes digitize the source to settle process and run faster, simpler and smarter than ever before. To learn more about the them and the value they can deliver, visit www.ariba.com.

About Step Up For Students

Step Up For Students is a nonprofit organization that helps manage the income-based Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program. Students who qualify for the national free or reduced-price lunch program, or those who are homeless or in foster or out-of-home care, may qualify. The scholarship program provides tuition assistance to the private school of their parents’ choice or financial assistance to offset the transportation cost to an out-of-district public school. Since 2001, Step Up has awarded nearly 580,000 scholarships.

Step Up also helps administer the state-funded Gardiner Scholarship Program for Florida students with certain special needs. With the Gardiner Scholarship, recipients may use the funds for a variety of approved services including private school tuition and fees, private tutoring, occupational therapy, instructional materials and other services. For more information, visit: http://www.StepUpForStudents.org.

About Premikati

Premikati is an Indianapolis-based WBENC certified WBE Management Consulting and BPO firm that utilizes SAP Ariba solutions as a key component of its service offerings. Premikati helps its clients with all facets of Procurement and Contract Management, focusing on simplifying complex processes and challenges. To learn more about the company, visit www.premikati.com.

About SAP Ariba

SAP Ariba is how companies connect to get business done. On the Ariba Network, buyers and suppliers from more than 2.8 million companies and 190 countries discover new opportunities, collaborate on transactions and grow their relationships. Buyers can manage the entire purchasing process, while controlling spending, finding new sources of savings and building a healthy supply chain. And suppliers can connect with profitable customers and efficiently scale existing relationships – simplifying sales cycles and improving cash control along the way. The result is a dynamic, digital marketplace, where nearly $1 trillion in commerce gets done every year.

To learn more about SAP Ariba, visit www.ariba.com.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE:SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable approximately 355,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2017 SAP SE. All rights reserved.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

Sep 12
Premikati with Aon Cornerstone

Premikati, Inc. partnering with Aon Cornerstone

By Press No Comments

Premikati, Inc. with Aon Cornerstone

Partnership, A “Win-Win” For Premikati, Inc. Clients Looking to Diversify Their Supply Chain

Indianapolis, IN Nov.2, 2016 – Premikati,Inc. today announced a strategic partnership with Aon Cornerstone, a business unit of Aon plc (NYSE:AON) that focuses on fostering strategic alliances with minority business enterprises. (MBE), headquartered in Indianapolis, is a WEBNC certified woman- owned firm with extensive experience in the risk mitigation industry. Aon plc is the leading global provider of risk management, risk and reinsurance brokerage, and human resource consulting and outsourcing solutions.

Aon Cornerstone unites the global risk management and human resource solutions of Aon with the local presence and functional knowledge of (MBE) to deliver distinctive value to clients. By leveraging the specialized expertise, broad resources, global network, intellectual capital and best practices of the two firms, this partnership is positioned to deliver strategic, integrated strategies and solutions for managing risk and human resource demands while meeting important diversity and inclusion imperatives in an increasingly complex global environment.

Through a rigorous vetting process, Premikati, Inc. was chosen by Aon Cornerstone as a new addition into their exclusive network of partners seeking to care for existing clients’ needs surrounding diversity and exploring new endeavors that would afford global corporations, Fortune 100 companies, and large public entity clients the opportunity to work with a minority-owned firm, while simultaneously giving them the comfort of Aon’s extensive global network of resources, support and service.

About Premikati

Premikati is a WBENC certified WBE Management Consulting and BPO firm that is specifically tailored to Contract Management and Procurement. We help our clients with all facets of contracting and procurement strategy as well as outsourced Contract Management Services.   We employ procurement executives, attorneys, contract management professionals, Six Sigma Black Belts, and certified Change Masters with extensive experience either inside or consulting with the world’s top companies.

For more information on Premikati, Inc., log onto https://www.premikati.com

 

For more information on Aon Cornerstone, log onto http://www.aon.com/cornerstone

Sep 12
Premikati Transforms Contract Management with SAP Ariba

Premikati Transforms Contract Management with SAP Ariba

By Press No Comments

Certified WBE outsourcing firm leverages cloud-based solutions to fuel efficient digital process that delivers savings and compliance

PALO ALTO, Calif., November 16, 2016 – The cloud is where efficient contract management is happening. But many businesses lack the technology and resources to get there. Premikati is out to change this, with some help from SAP Ariba. The business process outsourcing and management consulting firm today announced that it will leverage Ariba® Contract Management Professional™ to drive an efficient, digital process for managing contracts that delivers savings and compliance.

“We have seen clients of all sizes and industries struggle with contract management,” said Marisol Buczynski Buchanan, CEO of Premikati. “Lack of tracking with respect to items such as expiration dates, renewal terms/price increases, service level agreements, notice provisions, and even counter signatures is all too common. With SAP Ariba, we can help them overcome these issues.”

An SAP Ariba BPO partner, Premikati will use SAP Ariba’s technology to perform contract management services not only for large enterprises, but for companies under $500 million in annual revenue. And in doing so, it aims to eliminate many of the barriers that prevent them from pursuing digital strategies such as a lack of resources to implement and manage software. “We can have them up and running in two to three weeks at a very cost-effective price point,” Buchanan said.

Ariba Contract Management Professional is the industry’s leading SaaS solution for contract management. Uniquely designed to eliminate the paper and ink from the creation, execution, and management of any type of contractual agreement, the offering enables companies of all sizes to efficiently:

  • Automate and accelerate the entire contract lifecycle
  • Standardize and control contract development
  • Collaborate with all stakeholders
  • Strengthen operational, contractual, and regulatory compliance

“Contracts are the lifeblood of any organization and managing them effectively can deliver strategic advantage,” said David Johnston, Senior Vice President, Partner Ecosystem, SAP Ariba. “With SAP Ariba’s technology and Premikati’s contract management expertise, companies of all sizes can get on the road to automation and drive an efficient process that lowers both their costs and risk.”

To learn more about SAP Ariba’s contract management solutions and the value they can deliver, visit: www.ariba.com. Learn More.

About Premikati

Premikati is a WBENC certified WBE Management Consulting and BPO firm that is specifically tailored to Contract Management and Procurement. Premikati helps its clients with all facets of contracting and procurement strategy as well as outsourced Contract Management Services including the drafting and negotiation of contracts.   They employ procurement executives, attorneys, contract management professionals, Six Sigma Black Belts, and certified Change Masters with extensive experience either inside or consulting with the world’s top companies.

About SAP Ariba

SAP® Ariba® is the marketplace for digital business, creating frictionless exchanges between millions of buyers and suppliers across the entire source-to-pay process. Our market-leading solutions enable companies to simplify collaboration with their trading partners, make smarter business decisions and extend their collaborative business processes with an open technology platform. More than two million companies use SAP Ariba solutions to connect and collaborate around nearly one trillion in commerce on an annual basis. To learn more about the company’s offerings and the transformation they are driving, visit www.ariba.com. Learn More.

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable approximately 335,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com. Learn More.

 

 

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2016 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices.

Aug 21
Premikati Marketplace

What is the Premikati Marketplace?

By Procurement No Comments

The Premikati Marketplace is everything you’ve been dreaming about to streamline your purchase request to order process and better manage the relationship with your suppliers.

Procurement software leader, SAP Ariba™, and Premikati together have designed a solution for the SMB space providing SAP® Ariba Buying as a BPO service – reducing monthly costs and the need for implementation all together.

This is the same software used by Fortune companies around the world, and is supported by Premikati’s team of procurement experts. 

Everything You Need In One Place

Stop wasting resources on inefficient purchases from uncontracted suppliers. Earn back your cash and control by shopping tens of millions of products through our intuitive interface that functions with the same familiarity as personal, online shopping.

Our B2B marketplace offers non-sourced goods all on a single, simple platform. 

Find products for a variety of needs, including: 

  • Office Supplies
  • Electrical & Test Equipment
  • Technology & Accessories,
  • Facilities & Maintenance
  • MRO & Industrial
  • Other Goods

Want to Add Your Own Suppliers?

We can do that for you!

You have the option to use both the Premikati Marketplace catalog as well as your own contracted catalogs with your favorite suppliers.

The Premikati team will work with your suppliers to get them onboard and transacting!  There are hundreds of suppliers already on the Marketplace offering thousands of goods and services.

Adding your own specific suppliers will add a bit more cost and implementation time.

The Name of The Game Is Savings… And Our Customers Are Winning

The Premikati Marketplace helps your business save in every way. 

Save time by integrating a single platform to meet all your needs into your buying process. Save cash by finding new savings opportunities in our trusted array of affordable, high-quality suppliers.

Save your sanity by gaining visibility and control over your business’s purchasing with features like user access and spend controls, price thresholds, and easy-to-manage reporting.

Plus, you can expect to find price savings on average of 8-10%, and as high as 35% by reducing tail spend, rebate savings of around 1% on typical Premikati purchases, and process savings of days or weeks simply by making the switch.

The Premikati Marketplace utilizes a prime, subscription-based approach that leaves your business richer—in time, money, and data—every step of the way. 

Without All The Technobabble And Wait Times

Opt out of overly-complex purchasing solutions that require you to hire a whole tech team just to keep it running after lengthy implementation periods. Opt in to the Premikati Marketplace for 24-hour turnaround on implementation—start to completely finished.

And, while you don’t need any IT Systems Admin, and there’s no technical implementation to delay your growth, we do offer free help desk support.

Our platform is so easy to use that we won’t mind if you call the help desk just to chat—our help desk folks are getting lonely in all that silence. 

Healthy, Efficient Supply Chain

Vendor management and the supply chain process should work for your business, not against it. Streamline your processes with the Premikati Marketplace to ensure you’re getting the best deals, using your time wisely, and giving your business its best opportunity to grow to its fullest capacity.

Our SAP Ariba backed, compliance-ready, procure-to-pay purchasing platform is the measurable, manageable, and convenient way to find trustworthy suppliers, control ad-hoc spending, and keep your data clear and close at hand. Plus, it starts as little as $500 month. 

Do you want to find out more about the Premikati Marketplace or learn more about how to strengthen your supply chain for free—from our experts to yours? Join any of our e-learning webinars with industry expert, Ryan Matthes, Senior Vice President of Global Procurement at Premikati, Inc. And if you’re ready to dive into the Premikati Marketplace, you can start your subscription here through our sales team. 

Aug 21
Premikati inc, SAP Gold PArtner

Why Procurement is the Best Job in the World

By Procurement No Comments

When you pass someone on the street and mention procurement as a career, you’re likely to get blank stares and maybe even snores from the uninitiated. In reality though, procurement professionals have a whole host of opportunities to find joy and gratitude in their jobs as well as chances to make a real difference in the world. What makes this job so great? 

Friends In High Places… And All Places

When you’re in procurement, you’re constantly talking to people both in and outside of your company. You have the opportunity to form connections with suppliers all over the world (which can, in turSAP Procurement Softwaren, lead to even more opportunities) as well as folks from all manner of department within your own company. Procurement pros regularly interface with marketing, finance, PR, and everybody in between. If you play your cards right, this can result in real, meaningful interpersonal relationships just as it can career opportunities.

The Coolest Tech in the World

Procurement and technology go together like peanut butter and jelly. Especially at top, enterprise-level companies, the technology utilized in procurement departments can be staggering. Even in small and mid-sized businesses, though, it’s likely you’ll get to work with cool new tech like artificial intelligence and predictive analytics. This type of tech can be used for things like accurate supply and demand planning.

The Nomad Life If You Want It

Procurements pros can go literally anywhere if they’re good at their jobs. Have you always wanted to take the plunge and move to Costa Rica? France? Cambodia? There will be jobs ready and waiting to utilize your skills. Additionally, as with many other professions, lots of procurement workers are opting for the remote-work route, letting them work from coffee shops and shared workspaces in a new city every day of the week.

Life-Saving Superheroes

From avoiding environmental catastrophes brought on by poor human ethics to providing aid in the event of national disasters, procurement professionals are in the lineup to help save the world. In procurement, you get to help decide to utilize sustainable, environmentally- and socially-healthy suppliers over the ones who cut corners, pollute the planet, and take advantage of people through forced labor and other similarly heinous actions.

In the same vein, procurement pros step in too when humanitarian aid is needed, like in the event of hurricanes in Haiti.

Job Makers

We all know someone who has been passing resumes to everyone who will stop long enough to take one, but who still doesn’t have a job. It’s just the state of the economy sometimes, when skills and job openings don’t align, or the money simply isn’t there. By working in procurement, you get to help create jobs, allowing more people to sustain themselves and their families. In procurement, you impact business at a core level, opening opportunities to create more, sustainable, dignified jobs for the people who are happy to fill them.

Make Money, Spend Money

The name of the game in procurement is to spend other people’s money. You get the opportunity to learn all sorts of tactics for managing money, saving, budgeting, etc.—skills that can carry over to your personal financial life as well.

Speaking of personal finance, this is a job after all. In procurement, you can expect to get paid with some reliability and have a reasonable amount of job security. Luckily, procurement pros also tend to see decent raises and a growth in their value over time as they learn new skills—they may be less likely to stagnate on the income scale compared to other professions. And, with all your procurement skills, you’ll know how to negotiate and manage your money to get every bit of value out of each dollar you earn.

Are you a procurement professional who loves your job? Do you want to connect with suppliers who will make your day even brighter all the while getting great deals on the purchases you make for your business? Check out the rest of Premikati site!

Aug 01
Costs of Your Supplier Relationships

What are the Real Costs of Your Supplier Relationships?

By Procurement No Comments

Summary: Supplier relationships can be costly in terms of both money and time investments, and can also be rife with risk. Many businesses are turning to B2B marketplaces in order to lower cost and risk alike and instead focus on collaborative relationships, strategic partnerships, and innovation. 

When you’re in business, you have to form relationships with suppliers in one way or another in order to get the job done. However, the way you go about building supplier relationships can make all the difference to your bottom line as well as the innovative potential of your business. When seeking out suppliers and a way to interact with them, it’s important to be aware of the actual cost of the relationship, the risks involved by doing business with them, and the alternatives you have at hand.

What Are The Costs Of Your Supplier Relationships?

When it comes to supplier relationship management, the whole ordeal can be costly if you let it get out of hand. If you have too many suppliers, you risk high costs, confusion, and overcomplication in other areas of business which rely on these supplies, like production. Too few suppliers, and you’re in an “all your eggs in one basket” situation which rarely leads to good things in business or in life.

According to a study by The Hackett Group in 2012,

“It costs roughly $700-$1,400 in internal costs (i.e., labor, outsourcing, technology and related overhead) to source each supplier, set it up in internal systems, transact with it and manage the relationship on an ongoing basis.”

Among the reasons to consolidate suppliers cited in the study, is that added buying power with each supplier can lower your cost of purchase as well as your supplier management costs.

Even beyond money, dealing with paperwork manually, fixing invoice errors and discrepancies, and communicating with suppliers over inquiries costs companies about 6500 hours a year—and you can bet that they are paying someone for each and every one of those hours.

What Are The Risks Of Working With Your Supplier?

Trust, transparency, and longevity are all valid concerns when contemplating the risks of working with suppliers. Contract management alone can be a hefty ordeal, especially if you find yourself dealing with a subpar supplier, since contract renegotiation can be a long and arduous process.

Each supplier you manually add to your supply base also results in a cadre of compliance risks. How do they safeguard their data? How does their preceding supply chain look—are they reliable? Are they utilizing corrupt practices somewhere down the line like forced labor, poor work conditions, or even human trafficking? Without a process in place alongside the skill and man-hours to verify each of your suppliers compliance standards as well as consistent checks to ensure their standards are regularly updated and maintained, you run the risk of severe ethical and reputational harm to your business.

When business neglect to regularly analyze their supplier lists and consolidate where it’s relevant to do so, spend visibility also suffers. Companies may pass along orders to vendors sheerly out of convenience, desire, or cost with little further rationale—all of which can lead to costly situations down the line. Being able to monitor and have full visibility into your company’s spend is vital to healthy, low-risk supplier relationships.

Why Are More Companies Looking To B2B Marketplaces For Their Suppliers?

The middle ground between too many and too few suppliers is paring down to focus on your key suppliers and nurturing those relationships. Similarly, employing the necessary services to validate the compliance of your suppliers can save you many dollars and headaches throughout the course of your business. Both of these reasons are why many companies are turning to B2B marketplaces to source their suppliers.

B2B marketplaces enable buyers to home in on key suppliers, increase spend visibility, lower overhead costs of SRM, and allow businesses to focus on the more important aspects of having supplier relationships and with far fewer worries. Instead, businesses can spend their time developing collaborative, strategic relationships and key partnerships in order to boost innovation and profit for everyone involved.

One well-known supporter of building strong, collaborative supplier relationships as a driver of innovation is Toyota. Approximately 15% of Toyota’s suppliers can be classed as “strategic potential or actual co-developers.” They are sure to invest additional time and resources in these suppliers through activities such as attending R&D shows to spur discussion about new technologies.

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