Supplier performance
We know you’ve got a range of suppliers to choose from, covering all manner of services. The size or structure of an organisation can make it difficult to track, evaluate and select your suppliers according to merit. Variable products and services can impact the level of service that you provide, the satisfaction of your customers, and ultimately your bottom line.
Supplier relationship goals
Contract Insight works for organisations of all sizes, with flexible architecture to meet a wide range of requirements. The software is a result of years of industry research, development, and customer feedback and is used by many Fortune 500 companies.
Generally speaking, when it comes to suppliers, most businesses have the same expectations and requirements:
- to improve efficiency and profits.
- to reduce inventory costs and stock levels.
- decrease risk.
- enhance
- improve client satisfaction.
When supplier performance management isn’t a priority, poor relationships lead to payment and cost problems, missed details and deadlines, and a lack of compliance. As an organisation’s roster of vendors grow, these challenges will increase in frequency and complexity.
Strategic low-risk, high value sourcing
Most successful organisations have an effective supplier management system in place. This helps them drive value from contracts, nurture long-term relationships, and manage thousands of different suppliers. Supplier performance should be based on clearly defined, agreed and measurable KPIs. Historical supplier performance data will help you establish a baseline to ensure that your business gets the most value from its suppliers. Typically, the benefits of managing supplier performance include decreased risk, streamlined supplier management and contract administration processes, continuous product and service improvements, and cost reduction. Typical KPIs – which are qualitative, quantitative and achievable, include:
- quality
- capacity
- delivery
- risk
- security
- cost savings
- customer service
- innovation
- expansion.
Rate your suppliers with Contract Insight
Rating your suppliers can help your organisation identify the right ones to continue engaging. CobbleStone’s Contract Insight® software enables your users to compare and rate your suppliers within your system on specific categories such as performance, on-time delivery, invoicing accuracy and quality. Rating scorecards can be used to rate all companies you do business with to help you make better decisions about which suppliers to use in the future, and which companies you have successfully or unsuccessfully conducted business with.
Learn how to easily rate and review suppliers using Contract Insight
1. Select the supplier you want to rate.
Your supplier record displays details such as primary contact, address, email etc. Click on ‘rate this Company’ on the left ‘Actions’ toolbar.
2. Rate your supplier
First choose the ‘rating type/category’. This will allow you to choose from rating options such as delivery, quality, responsiveness, risk, or other any granular options specific to your industry that you configure in your system. The ‘target rating’ represents the expected rating you’d like to see for this category and the ‘rating score’ represents your actual rating. Your ‘target rating’ might be 5 stars and your ‘rating score’ is your selection from these 5 stars. We recommend you keep your target score consistent across categories and ratings for accurate comparisons.
3. Review supplier ratings
The supplier rating and score card summary helps system users understand the overall ratings for each supplier
4. Rating and scorecard summary
The ‘peer’s average rating’ compares the supplier being assessed with other suppliers rated on the same category.
5. Supplier rating trends
Supplier rating trends display a bar chart that shows how the supplier in question has been rated over time. Once this supplier has been rated over a period of time, trends will develop for each category to help users determine if this particular supplier’s ratings have increased or decreased. This will help with future selection of suppliers.
The supplier performance management scorecard
A balanced scorecard considers weighted metrics within the KPI categories you’ve already established. Contract Insight® supplier rating scorecards can help you make better decisions about who you work with. They make it easy to rate financial stability, performance, quality, invoicing accuracy, supplier comparisons, and more.
CobbleStone’s risk ranking feature allows users to track the KPIs measured, supplier categories, and KPI score trends to create an accurate picture of how a supplier performs against agreed targets and in comparison to other suppliers in the same category.
Supplier management scorecards should be easy to use and configured to align with timelines and milestones for automated supplier contract management. Common supplier KPI types can be measured by:
- the consistency rates of delivering products and services that meet or exceed quality standards
- the ability to regularly meet product and service delivery deadlines despite challenges around logistics, system uptime, change requests, or defect rates
- competitive pricing balanced with infrequent price increases, acceptable quality standards, and delivery times
- customer service excellence with effective collaboration, complaint escalation, and resolution management
- business risk based on areas including financial stability, market/regulation changes, and safety and legal requirements
- security capabilities focused on vulnerability remediation and swift response to security incidents, reducing the likelihood of data exposure.
To find out more
Thank you for your interest in Four Business Solutions. If you’d like to find out more about how Contract Insight® can help with you manage your suppliers and manage your risk, please call John O’Brien, CEO at Four Business Solutions on 0800 6250 025.