supplier management

Understanding and Implementing Successful Spend Analysis

Image of Spend Analysis

SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Andy Jacobs shares how important it is to understand spend analysis by assessing your suppliers and stakeholders.

Andy Jacobs, Category Analyst, Border States Electric

Understanding Supplier Management

Image of Supplier Management

SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program graduate Kaila Flynn shares how to maintain supplier management from a sales perspective and provides a great reminder of how important relationships and the aspects that make relationships successful are in business

Kaila Flynn, Sales Executive, Sourcing Industry Group

A Post Pandemic Imperative

Image of Supplier Management

SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Nick Fratto describes how sourcing professionals must adapt to a post pandemic industry and how to find the perfect supplier's for your business.

Nick Fratto, Sales Enablement Specialist, Sourcing Industry Group

KPI & Performance Management

Image of KPI Management

SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Thomas Moran shares the different types of KPIs that are vital to an organization and the importance of performance management.


A KPI is a Key performance indicator; this is a measurable rate or value that demonstrates how effectively and efficiently a team or objectives is performing. Many companies use KPIs to evaluate success in reaching goals or targets. They should have a clear objective and align with your business goals. 

Why are they important? 

KPIs are necessary to determine if a business is meeting its goals, give accountability, and leverage the health of outsourced relationships based on performance metrics. If we look at BPO ( Business process outsourcing ), KPIs are critical to determining the work's weekly, monthly, and quarterly health of the outsourced work. It creates accountability to ensure. Vendors are meeting and maintaining these values and ensuring the work they are supplying is consistently kept to a high standard. 

Setting and Measuring KPI 

KPI should be directly related to your business goals. These should be quantifiable measurements to gauge the health of your work. For instance, in some BPO work, your KPI could be based on customer satisfaction rates, turnaround time, quality of action taken, or how effectively and efficiently the team is performing productively.

Type of KPI -

Thomas Moran, Global Outsourcing Senior Programmer Manager, Pinterest

What is Important For Me In a Supplier Relationship

Image of Supplier Relationship Management

SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program graduate Andy Peksa shares what he finds as the most important aspects of a supplier relationship and how they may be able to help you in your role.

Andy Peksa, Senior Buyer-Procurement Ops, T. Rowe Price

The Benefits of Intelligent Process Automation

Image of Sourcing Technology

SIG University Certified Intelligent Automation Professional (CIAP) program graduate Bob Lutz shares how implementing intelligent process automatation can be beneficial to your business

Bob Lutz, Account Executive, Medius

Improving Supplier Relations

Image of Supplier Relations

SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Sergio Mielnik shares an in-depth understanding of how supplier relationships should be managed and how improving supplier relations at different levels will create successful sourcing engagements.


Throughout the certification, a constant emphasis on supplier relationships and the guidance provided to use these relationships as drivers to successful sourcing engagements. Suppliers are critical drivers of your pricing, delivery, strategy, and forecast. I have engaged suppliers from sole-source, directed, competitive, non-competitive, and management sources. Each situation has been unique, but I have treated all suppliers with the same level of communication and collaboration.

As supply chains get tighter and more competitive, it is essential to keep those communication channels to create a personal approach rather than a solely monetary exchange approach. This does not mean you hand out the keys to your supplier, but if this could happen, you can trust the relationship developed to obtain solutions and drive success.

Managing suppliers at different levels, whether critical or non-critical, is another topic that I found interesting. The relationship between a “ma and pa” shop versus a top-tier conglomerate is not the same. Still, you must strive to find that personal connection with different types of companies, provide fairness in your approach, and understand each supplier’s competitive advantages. I have often found myself waiting in line with top suppliers, which affects our delivery and production schedules.

Sergio Mielnik, Lead Business Risk and Controls Advisor, USAA

Successful Governance in Procurement

Image of Governance

SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program graduate Cathy Rutherford describes how curcial Governance is in a procurement organization and how it can transform your team for the better. 

Cathy Rutherford, Director of Procurement, CoStar Group Inc.

Sourcing In the Midst of a Pandemic

Sourcing Strategies

SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Daniel Coggins shares how his organiztion has adapted their sourcing strategies to best suit the current challenges the pandemic has created for the sourcing world.

Daniel Coggins, Strategic Sourcing team, American Tire Distributors

Supplier Relationship Compatibility

Image of Supplier Relationship

SIG University Certified Supplier Management Professional (CSMP) program graduate Damilare Adeoye discusses why having a strong relationship with suppliers makes for more compatible businesses.


Successful supplier identification, qualification, and onboarding require a stringent supplier relationship check. This is important because it drives a long-term relationship with the supplier and the client, not based on cost, price reduction, or specification alignment.

This lesson, to me, is the art of any successful supplier relationship.

However, many procurement professionals and their organizations need to gain these skills. No wonder the relationship with the supplier is shabby, and most times, a one-way approach where the client is always looking for ways to save money and still get quality materials, and the supplier is always looking for ways to increase the price. "Any relationship that is not built on compatibility is a relationship that is heading for a crash."

In this essay, I introduce you to "what" a supplier relationship fit is and "how" to successfully develop a supplier relationship compatibility/fit, implementation, and management.

Definition:

  • Supplier: An organization that provides raw materials, products, or services.
  • Compatibility: the state in which two things can exist or occur together without problems or conflict.

Supplier Compatibility is when an organization that provides raw materials, products, or services shares similar strategic approaches, goals, and objectives.

Oluwadamilare Adeoye, Supply Chain Category Manager, GEP Worldwide

Pages