Supplier Portfolio Management: Strategies for Design and Growth

Abstract

The analysis identifies opportunities to design and grow supplier portfolio management. Recent advances in process automation enable better coordination across a complex set of enterprise participants. By deploying emerging solutions and practices, the supplier portfolio management can mature. Typically overseen by CFO or COO, the set of providers are subject to extensive due diligence during the pre- and post-award stages. Supply management professionals assess the landscape of current and prospective providers to determine viable sourcing options. The goal is to set-up, manage and complete initiatives to maximize success. As a result, alignment, compliance, consistency, focus and scale are better accomplished. Recent advances in autonomous sourcing, robotic process automation, cloud transformation and agile application development can accelerate the benefit realization timeline. In order to identify, evaluate and manage offerings from a range of suppliers, an organization needs to design and grow an effective approach. As new suppliers are added to the portfolio, other suppliers will roll-off. This article provides recommendations for supplier portfolio practices. As the portfolio and teams mature, dynamic business conditions attract new and exciting offerors. Existing supplier relationships may require less hand-holding but still need to be monitored and their performance reported. Obsolete providers are curtailed. In a similar vein, the experience, capability and composition of team members will evolve.