The Ultimate Guide to Supplier Onboarding Success

Transcription

1 The Ultimate Guide to Supplier Onboarding Success

2 The Ultimate Guide to Supplier Onboarding Success Many companies have hundreds or thousands of trading partners across their organization, and a great deal of important supplier data travels between these parties. When supplier data is inaccurate or poorly maintained, it can result in significant business risk and millions in annual financial costs for organizations. Accommodate Strategize Supplier Base Identify To effectively manage a supply base, organizations are moving towards strategic supplier management, or Communicate Reach supplier network management (SNM) 18.5% solutions. Their goals are to extract more value from inbound value chains and reduce the risks and total costs of business partnerships. SNM solutions work to improve and solidify business interactions and transactions by providing buyers and suppliers with much-needed visibility and control into the process. This is accomplished through supplier portals, interactive dashboards, dispute resolution, einvoicing, contract and payment management, robust reporting and analytics, and more. However, before organizations can maximize the value of supplier relationships with SNM solutions, they have to effectively migrate their suppliers to a platform. When organizations are unable to electronically connect to a majority of their supply base, they leave a tremendous amount of value on the table. This Ultimate Guide offers a few key pointers on effectively bringing those suppliers into full business efficiency and value.

3 Take Advantage of Your SNM Provider Innovative SNM providers offer extensive supplier onboarding strategies and confident execution strategies designed to present your supplier base with effortless and irresistible ways to join the network. These providers use dedicated onboarding teams to bring suppliers the connection options and personalized attention needed to get them up and running on the network quickly. Onboarding offerings include reminders and sign-ups, video tutorials, automated workflows to manage the approval process for new suppliers, and self-service functionality that allows suppliers to register themselves. Present Your Suppliers With the Benefits There are more than enough benefits SNM solutions bring to buying organizations, but it s important that your suppliers know what a network can do for them. These include increases in sales opportunities through access to tens of thousands of buyers, and improved communications with vendors through self-service supplier portals, dispute resolution, help desk support, and more. Supplier networks also facilitate faster payments to suppliers with electronic invoicing and approval workflows, accelerating the order-to-cash cycle and speeding up the supply chain. Be Mindful of Your Supplier Base Locating the best suppliers, keeping compliant and up-to-date supplier information, and negotiating the best agreements are all key components of effectively managing business commerce. However, to build an electronic network that produces real value, companies must venture beyond these steps to constantly discover, assess, and onboard new trading partners. Evaluate which of your suppliers would be receptive to different onboarding techniques, and work with your solution provider to ensure you don t leave any strategy off the table. SNM solutions offer the visibility necessary to determine the right mix of suppliers, advance business goals, and reduce risk.

4 Go Beyond Your Biggest Suppliers In order to achieve critical supplier mass, buyers must extend their focus beyond onboarding their top suppliers. While top suppliers represent a large portion of a buyer s spend dollars, they account for a mere fraction of total transactions. The more suppliers a buyer can connect with via the supplier network, the greater a buyer s opportunity to eliminate inefficient paper-based processes, free up staff for high value tasks, lower transaction costs, and save through discount programs. Choose A Solution That s Economical For Suppliers SNM solutions not only save your organization time and money, they do the same for your business partners. However, costs are still one of the top concerns of suppliers considering an electronic network. When a supplier is presented with a request to join and transact over a supplier network, they weigh the costs and benefits. If charged membership fees or required to engage in costly IT projects, suppliers either will not participate or will charge those added expenses back to the buyer. To eliminate these obstacles, SNM solutions enable supplier enrollment that is fast, easy, and free. Make sure your suppliers are aware of the low costs associated with connecting to a supplier network. An optimized buyer-supplier connection propels both parties forward in operational success and competitive advantage. For more information on supplier onboarding, view our full webinar featuring Tradeshift, now available on demand: A Proactive Approach to Supplier Onboarding

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