Manage your vendors to optimize their performance and maximize your return. More effective engagement will uncover issues that are increasing your acquisition costs. Beyond this, you cannot minimize your transactional or sourcing fixed costs without successfully integrating IT systems.
The Intuitivum Approach
At the Intuitivum Group, we believe that you cannot maximize the return on your vendor relationships without systemically driving the relationship. You must define appropriate quantitative performance metrics, review the data frequently, correct deficiencies, communicate results, and investigate opportunities for continuous improvement as a normal part of your business.
For this reason, we have developed standards and procedures to ensure effective performance in this area. These documents ensure that we understand and comply with a minimum set of requirements when we manage the vendor relationship. They are also used as a starting point when we support clients in the creation of management systems standards for their organizations. In the supplier management area, our standards and procedures set expectations in three major activities:
Supplier Management – We expect that practices are in place to improve supplier performance and optimize total cost of ownership, including:
- Requirements to review, document, and manage their performance on a basis consistent with value
- Processes to identify and differentially manage Strategic Suppliers
- Periodic assessments to ensure that Health, Safety and Environmental, regulatory and business interruption risks are understood and controlled based on both probability and degree of impact
Commodity Management – We also believe that practices should be in place to ensure:
- Leveraging opportunities are identified through Commodity standardization and substitution, or through technological changes
- The value and utilization of existing contracts is maximized
- Market conditions are monitored and reviewed periodically
- Strategic commodities are identified and managed appropriately
Knowledge Sharing – We also anticipate that processes are in place to ensure that information regarding supplier performance is shared broadly internally and with the supplier, and that practices exist to ensure that commodity, supplier and sourcing expertise is shared broadly within the organization.
- A formal evaluation system is in place for internal clients to provide feedback on the performance of strategic and leveraging suppliers and corrective action is taken
- A formal evaluation system is in place for strategic and leveraging suppliers to provide information to the client organization regarding potential performance improvements
- Systems are in place to ensure that global procurement expertise is shared
Standards, Procedures, and Benchmark Protocols in this area include:
Standards
Procurement Management Processes
Key Supplier Performance and Reliability
Organization Performance Management
Procedures
Vendor Relationship Management – Supplier Management
Vendor Relationship Management – Commodity Management
Vendor Relationship Management – Knowledge Sharing
Benchmark and Audit Protocols
Procurement Management Standards and Procedures
Supplier Performance and Reliability
Procurement Organization Design
Organization Effectiveness and Development Needs
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