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Supplier Experience Management (SXM)

Why focusing on supplier experience is a win-win for all

Watch the Introduction

Become Customer of Choice With Supplier Experience Management

Success for any organization is now either achieved through acting in step with its suppliers, or it doesn’t exist. The last decade has seen a fundamental and permanent shift in supply chain relationships and the supplier experience. The leading organizations recognize the value of suppliers and that their future growth relies on the strength of their supplier base.

These companies see that:

  • Success isn’t a zero-sum game; for a business to win, doesn’t mean its suppliers have to lose.
  • Suppliers are not a commodity.  The best partners, working together at their best, are at a serious competitive advantage.
  • Every supplier is different; a unique experience is required to make each supplier relationship flourish.
  • This needs to be recognized as a priority by management throughout the whole organization as their end customers will be impacted by poor supplier experiences, creating a negative perception of the organization.
  • There needs to be a holistic view of the supplier experience when developing supplier relations operationally and strategically.

Supplier Experience Management combines this supplier-centric philosophy with the right technology to enable every supplier to do their best work for you and achieve mutually beneficial success.

99%

of companies have more than two supplier facing systems that their suppliers interact with

67%

of organizations say they need to improve time to resolve enquiries from suppliers

64%

of organizations say that better interdepartmental communications are needed for supplier-related matters

82%

say ‘regional and local requirements’ is one of the top 5 biggest obstacles to improving supplier experience

Supplier Experience Management: Why Is It More Important Than Ever?

Making the case for Supplier Experience Management

In the first of a three-part series ‘Putting the Supplier Experience at the Forefront of Strategic Procurement,’ we focus on how to make the business case for Supplier Experience Management (SXM). 

Supplier Experience Management in Practice

In Part 2 we are joined by Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO, HICX and Adam Brown, Head of the Digital Garage at BT Sourced. We explore SXM in practice through a combination of looking at what’s happening today and how Procurement can focus to be ready for tomorrow.

What are the benefits of SXM?

In the final part of the series, we look at supplier centricity and the ROI of SXM. For this discussion, we are joined by Mary Beth Lang, Chief Supply Chain and Procurement Officer at Kaiser Permanente; and Robert Bonnar, Global Procurement Director, at SHV Energy.

Removing the Friction From the Supplier Experience

Supplier Experience Management: Be customer of choice for all your suppliers

Too often, large organizations create far too much friction in the relationships with almost all their suppliers. While it’s usually unintentional, this creates pain and additional costs for those suppliers, which in turn has a knock-on effect on the manufacturers themselves and their growth.

We’re talking about the number of different systems suppliers have to log in to, and about the number of data requests – often duplicated, often pointless, and usually with little in the way of instruction – which leaves the supplier to figure out whether the latest request applies to them.

And we’re talking about evermore ‘initiatives’ being passed down from customer to supplier, whether compliance-driven, or relating to any number of new directives on innovation, sustainability, diversity, and more.  The burden of these new initiatives falls disproportionately on suppliers as they have to investigate, document, and certify each time.

Focus on Innovation with Supplier Experience Management

Supplier Experience Management means removing these friction points.  This frees up the suppliers’ time to focus on more value-added activities such as product innovation.  It reduces supplier costs to serve you, which in turn, supports more favorable pricing, and it puts you in pole position to be the customer of choice for every supplier.

It also ensures that organizations benefit from higher levels of quality, shorter response and delivery times, greater levels of sustainability and optimal delivery performance.

Dr. Elouise Epstein – Kearney – Supplier Experience

Watch the inspiring Dr. Elouise Epstein’s presentation at the inaugural Supplier Experience Community session where she talks passionately about the importance of Supplier Experience and what is wrong with the way we are engaging with our suppliers today.

Read our exclusive ‘Supplier Experience Survey’ and learn:

  • The difference in perception and reality of supplier experience
  • Enterprise top priorities post-COVID
  • How communication is key to the next stage of supplier experience management
  • Obstacles to supplier experience management (SXM) and how to overcome them
  • The Supplier Experience Maturity model and how it can help plan for the future
Supplier Experience Survey 2021 Cover

Elevating Supplier Experience: How Supplier Experience Adds Value

Amy Fong, VP, Everest Group, and Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO, HICX, discuss the major advantages of putting supplier experience at the forefront of activities.

Read our practical guide ‘Preparing for Supplier Experience Management’ and learn:

  • Requirements for being ready for adopting the Supplier Experience Management (SXM) framework
  • The mindset shift that needs to take place
  • The benefits and ROI for everyone involved
Preparing for Supplier Experience Management (SXM)

Perfect Supplier Data

A better supplier experience yields better supplier data for best-of-breed ProcureTech

Underpinning both the supplier’s experience of working with you and your company’s ability to make the best possible decisions and operate most efficiently is supplier data.

Poor supplier data is the root cause of thousands of micro-inefficiencies that plague large manufacturers, requiring staff to check and double-check supplier information and unravel issues caused by duplicates or errors, and it undermines trust such that even good data is checked, just in case.

Supplier Experience Management has as its core, the understanding that data and supplier experience are intrinsically linked. Efforts to address the impact of bad data – through data cleansing and other such initiatives – are doomed to fail because they miss the fundamental point that what the supplier owns is the single source of truth for their individual data, and a poor experience discourages and prevents them from providing this to you.

A 1:1 Supplier Experience

By borrowing from their colleagues on marketing, procurement and supply chain teams can use technology to deliver an experience tailored to each individual supplier:

  • To give them access to all the information they need to supply you
  • Reduce the noise and give them only the information they need
  • Provide access to all the necessary systems through a single, personalized supplier experience management software portal which is configured to the specific needs of every individual supplier
  • Maintain a complete and accurate data profile for every supplier, which is managed by the supplier themselves, and used by every system in your business, reducing errors for you and re-work for them

At the core of SXM, actually, is a data topic which is the true benefit for large organisations embarking on it, is to solve the massive data challenge which they have today. At the end of the day, without data, you cannot be efficient. The experiences today are fully digital. The philosophy here is that better experiences create better data, better data creates better experiences.

Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO of HICX

“It’s about who has the shared ambition, who has the shared objective, who can work with you and invest their time alongside you to really be jointly successful. We talk about the supplier experience, hopefully people have got the idea that suppliers are an extension of our organization. Let’s maintain those relationships.”

Robert Bonnar, Senior Global Procurement Director at BP

“Procurement is just taking care of the first three dates in the relationship, there’s a whole marriage to come – which really we are not involved in. The experience bit is as much about people as it is about the systems and the tools.”

Adam Brown, Head of Digital Garage at BT Sourced

“Any company that has a long-term vision will make sure that the supplier network is sustainable. We make sure that the suppliers we would like to work with equally like to work with us. It just cannot be a one-way street.”

Ramit Mahajan, Head of Supply Chain Enablement, India at Henkel

“When I think of supplier centricity, and I think of all the work that we did during COVID, it really dynamically changed the way that we thought about our supplier partners, the manner in which we relied on them.”

Mary Beth Lang, Chief Supply Chain and Procurement Officer at Kaiser Permanente

“At the core of SXM, actually, is a data topic which is the true benefit for large organisations embarking on it, is to solve the massive data challenge which they have today. At the end of the day, without data, you cannot be efficient. The experiences today are fully digital. The philosophy here is that better experiences create better data, better data creates better experiences.”

Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO of HICX

Contact Sales To Discuss How Supplier Experience Management Can Work for Your Organization