Optimising a supplier - customer relationship

After many years in doing business service based industries, still, too often I see missed opportunities when customers are looking at taking on a new provider, or maximizing an existing relationship.

With the ability to compare prices now made incredibly simple through the use of various types of software, this unfortunately has now become the sole focus of many purchasing officers attention. The real wins can be found in the other intangible offerings the supplier can to assist your business with.

Let’s look at a few easy wins that could be achieved with just about any supplier:

Re-organising an invoice:

Every supplier will have an invoice system, which invariably will be different to every other supplier you have. Everyone can empathise with the frustration of having to decipher and invoice, week after week, often over a matter of a few dollars and cents.

Ask the supplier if they can have the invoice modified in a way that complies directly with your AP system, so as to maximise the efficiency in your bill payment process. If you do this with all of your suppliers, you would be amazed at the time that could be saved. More incredible still is how easy it may be for the supplier to provide this modification to you, at no cost to either party.

Collaboration:

In many cases, particularly in the world of logistics, suppliers and customers will share many of the same, guess what….suppliers and customers. For a business who employs a transport provider to deliver their product to their customers and that transport company also works for the supplier which they buy their product from, it could be worth looking at getting product sent directly from your supplier to your customer, completely eliminating the need for you to hold stock unnecessarily. This saves time, money and could possibly speed up your response time to your customers, providing a much wanted advantage to over your competitors.

This is a simple concept in theory and whilst it may take some time to initiate and implement, the long term savings are exponential if executed properly.

Sharing of resources:

This one is a bit left of field, but the benefits are unlimited. For example: you might be a business that imports goods, you have a large number of customers but few staff resources, particularly when it comes to customer service capabilities, or a call centre. Check out any of your suppliers who have a call centre and see if they have flat spots in their day, which they may be able to fit and hours’ worth of customer service calls into, on behalf of YOUR business. This could be a great value add to the relationship and take little to no effort to implement.

Sharing of leads:

Whenever sourcing a supplier or reviewing an incumbent, check their appetite for sharing of leads, (providing you have built up a sound level of credibility with each other first). The number of new business opportunities you could tap into by linking up your respective sales forces could be enormous.

These are just a handful of examples from a small section of areas that could be tapped into with your suppliers. Ultimately, a supply deal is not a one way street. The more proactive you are as a customer and willing to look at innovative ways to enhance the relationship, the more likely your service is to improve, making your business run more smoothly, with a greater EBIT result waiting for you at the end of each quarter.

Paul Rofe is a sales specialist in the transport & logistics industry