Supplier Enablement

Supplier Enablement - black hole

I have just reviewed a supplier adoption programme that deals with the strategy and approach that will be taken to acquire content and connectivity for an eProcurement roll-out.

Having read the documents two things struck me:

1. a team would be appointed to drive the programme – good decision

2. the programme lacked insight and detail about communication with suppliers - why?

As a general observation, a high level of competence exists to handle the data extraction and analysis that determines the selection of suppliers for inclusion in a supplier adoption programme, this part of the project being ‘internal’ to the business, but evidence shows a lack of experience when the project goes ‘external’ to the business to suppliers. It is a black hole for many.

The tough part of any supplier adoption programme is executing the activity of contacting your suppliers and then moving them to become active participants in your e-Procurement quickly and at a low cost to your business.

Quickly means the elapsed time is short between first contact with your supplier and your supplier being activated. This drives the benefits of eProcurement into the business and is vital to delivering ROI. Click here for a benchmark.

Low cost because, and you might not want to know this, most eProcurement projects woefully underestimate supplier adoption as an activity and the cost of this activity will impact ROI in Years 1 & 2.

It is apparent that supplier adoption, more often referred to now as supplier enablement, is a skill set and is increasingly in demand.

Click here if you are a buyer and want more information about how to run supplier enablement.

Labels: buyers, electronic invoicing, eprocurement, ROI, supplier enablement, suppliers

posted by FrankB @ Wednesday, May 16, 2007