As businesses continue to grow and expand, the need for efficient and effective supplier management becomes increasingly important. However, managing suppliers can be a time-consuming and complex process, especially when done manually. This is where automation comes in, providing a solution to streamline supplier selection, onboarding, management, and administration. So, what are the reasons driving automating supplier management?

Firstly, automation can significantly reduce the time and effort required for supplier selection. Selecting the best suppliers is critical for any organization's success. It's not just about finding the lowest price, but also ensuring that the supplier can deliver high-quality products on time, on favourable terms while providing excellent customer service. By using software tools, businesses can quickly and easily set quality supplier selection criteria and place weightings on each to come up with a scoring matrix. When conducting a Supplier Registration process to solicit up-to-date requirements, Suppliers who score greater than 75% automatically qualify for example. Therefore, an automated supplier registration process offers a platform that is accessible anywhere for suppliers to submit their details, statutory documentation, certifications and qualifications and escalation matrixes etc. This not only eliminates paper, saving time and floor space for storage (since submissions are made online) but also ensures that the best suppliers are selected, leading to better quality products and services.

Secondly, automating supplier onboarding can help ensure suppliers comply with all necessary regulations and requirements. Once you have a list of potential suppliers who registered, you need to evaluate them based on statutory compliance, quality, reliability, pricing, and customer service criteria. Usually, businesses have procurement policies that spell out the selection criteria for potential suppliers who are under consideration for onboarding. The policy may include processes to verify their credentials, conducting background checks (conducting site visits), ensuring that they are compliant with the necessary legal and ethical standards and requesting samples to assess the quality of their offering. By automating this process, businesses can reduce the risk of non-compliance and ensure that they are working with reputable suppliers.

Thirdly, automating supplier management can help to improve communication and collaboration between businesses and their suppliers. Also improves collaboration internally between different departments within an organization, such as procurement, finance, and operations ensuring that everyone is on the same page and that the procurement process is running smoothly. By using automated tools, businesses can easily identify internal process bottlenecks and address them, track supplier performance, monitor delivery times, and manage any issues or disputes that may arise. This not only helps to improve the overall relationship between businesses and their suppliers but also ensures that any issues are resolved quickly and efficiently.

Finally, automating supplier administration can help to reduce the risk of errors and improve overall efficiency. By automating tasks such as invoicing, payment processing, and contract management, businesses can reduce the risk of human error and ensure that all necessary tasks are completed on time. This not only saves time but also helps to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of financial loss.

In conclusion, automating supplier selection, onboarding, management, and administration can provide a range of benefits for businesses of all sizes. By streamlining these processes, companies can save time, reduce the risk of errors, and improve overall efficiency. So, if you want to improve your supplier management processes, consider automating them today!

Tradata is an integrated, e-commerce B2B, procure-to-pay platform that drives cost savings by digitizing, streamlining and optimizing the procurement, supply and logistics for enterprises, governments and SMEs. Tradata is one such platform you can consider to redefine and repurpose your organization around supplier registration, onboarding and management. Click here to book a demo to begin the journey! Thank you and don’t forget to like and share this post!