Supplier collaboration : What are the stakes? And the solutions?
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Supply chain challenges such as raw material shortages, production problems and quality defects are commonplace. Under normal conditions, more than half of all purchase orders undergo changes. In tense times, these changes multiply. Various strategies can be adopted to ensure the reliability of supply flows, but it is difficult to avoid operational hazards. So the major challenge becomes: how to simplify flow monitoring despite numerous changes? How can we effectively anticipate potential hazards (delays, additional costs)? And how can we limit the impact of these hazards on the entire value chain? The answer lies in collaborative, structured management of supply flows.
Challenges in Supplier Collaboration
Delivery delays, lack of operational visibility, quality issues, and missing information complicate supplier collaboration, significantly impacting workflow performance.
Breaking Silos and Streamlining Daily Exchanges
Managing supplier interactions is a major challenge, with over 80% of Supply Chain teams relying on emails, Excel, and even faxes. This fragmented collaboration, involving numerous double entries via ERP and email, consumes 30% to 60% of procurement and sourcing teams' daily efforts.
In an environment where data evolves significantly between creating an order in the ERP and its execution, opting for a supplier platform becomes crucial. This allows simplified, real-time, and shared daily collaboration with suppliers, eliminating inefficiencies associated with traditional methods.
Gaining Real-Time Visibility, Identifying Deviations Early
Once information is better shared, the focus shifts to gaining visibility to secure procurement order execution. With increasingly complex supply chains, operational teams face managing vast amounts of information and potential risks. Without real-time visibility into the entire supplier process and supply chain, effectively prioritizing energy and resolving issues upstream becomes practically impossible.
Understanding the difficulty of preventing a problem on a production line is one thing, but having prior information that it could compromise a scheduled delivery in 15 days is a more proactive perspective.
Structured, Precise, and Easily Actionable Data
The third crucial aspect of supplier collaboration lies in data structuring. In case of potential deviations, access to structured data enables optimal decision-making to limit the impact of delays, communication issues, or others. Visualization of specific order-related features, such as priority level, connection to a business operation, or adjusted product order cost, provides essential operational information to adjust workflow execution.
The ability of an operational professional to easily comprehend, cross-reference, filter, and modify data represents a major change to strengthen supplier collaborations' resilience and agility. Making decisions and being able to, in a straightforward manner, communicate potential changes and necessary adjustments to suppliers (ordered quantities, delivery location, merchandise transport guidelines) ensures optimal responsiveness.
Having structured data on supplier-driven supply chains also guarantees effective supplier performance management, based on objective and transparent data.
How Winddle Simplifies and Secures Supplier Collaboration?
- Liberating Procurement and Sourcing Teams from Low-Value Tasks
Winddle directly connects IT systems, enabling operational teams to gain up to 70% productivity. Automating numerous tasks, the platform reduces human errors, accelerates processing times, and allows focusing on high-value activities.
- Reliable and Real-Time Data
By facilitating structured sharing of key information, Winddle significantly improves data quality, eliminating misunderstandings and communication errors. Data does not require repetitive re-entry but is shared in real-time with information sources, covering all stakeholders, including systems and teams.
The platform centralizes up-to-date data, centralized documents, and activity histories, creating an essential foundation for effective management. Recognizing the importance of having structured and easily exploitable data, the platform naturally integrates statistical features to facilitate objective supplier performance management.
- End-to-End Visibility and Predictive Alerts
Winddle structures the entire supplier collaboration workflow, from order validation to final delivery, relying on predictive real-time calculations of deadlines and potential deviations. Each organization and user profile can easily configure personalized alerts, meeting specific process needs. Combined with an adjusted data display based on individual requirements and advanced collaboration features (comment sharing, document sharing, revision status, notifications), the platform allows identifying deviations' risks early, anticipating potential delays, and taking proactive measures to minimize disruptions. This allows more proactive stock management and more precise planning.
- Various Connection Modalities, User-Friendly Interface
Winddle offers unified collaboration modalities, adjusted to each supplier partner's specifics. Whether through a web connection with a simple login/password, EDI flow connection, or automated email workflows, Winddle provides the necessary flexibility to engage suppliers according to their preferences. The platform's ergonomics, combined with import/export features, bulk actions, and automated reminders, facilitate supplier adoption, ensuring a smooth transition. For those considering a supplier collaborative platform project and are concerned about engaging their suppliers.
- Transparent and Consolidated Supplier Relationship
By strengthening collaboration and eliminating potential frictions, Winddle contributes to establishing strong and transparent supplier relationships, promoting efficiency in the supply chain.
Supplier Collaborative Platform, What ROI?
As discussed throughout this article, implementing a supplier collaborative platform yields numerous adaptable benefits depending on each organization's specifics. These benefits include:
- Productivity Gains: Reduce time spent by teams on daily supplier order tracking.
- Structured and Shared Procurement Processes: Improve procurement process management through clear structure and efficient information sharing.
- Increased Visibility on Supplier Deliveries: Optimize reception organization with better visibility into ongoing deliveries.
- Improved Supplier Performance: Measure and optimize indicators such as On-Time Delivery (OTD), On-Time In-Full (OTIF), and service quality.
- Reduced Procurement Lead Times and Optimized Stock Rotation: Accelerate procurement lead times and optimize product storage.
- Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Strengthen communication about customer expectations, contributing to overall satisfaction.
- Financial Reporting Automation: Automated and collaborative valuation of outstanding amounts, management of additional costs, automated calculation of product costs directly linked with financial teams.
- Valuing Procurement and Sourcing Teams: Provide a simple and ergonomic solution to assist teams in their daily tasks, reinforcing their value.
- Simplification and Securing Transitions Between Collaborators: Facilitate personnel changes with shared, structured, and historized information.
Supplier Collaborative Platform, a Real Performance Lever
In conclusion, supplier collaboration is not just an operational necessity but a real strategic lever. Winddle provides the necessary tools to turn this collaboration into a competitive advantage, enabling companies to thrive in an increasingly demanding environment. By adopting a proactive approach to supplier collaboration, businesses can position their supply chain as a driver of growth and operational efficiency. Thoughtful selection, loyalty, and transparent collaboration are the pillars of a successful supplier relationship, contributing to long-term success in supply chain management.
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