Collaborative Work for a Strategic Supply Chain

“We’ve essentially lost touch with what “value” truly means and more importantly how an organization must collaborate, both internally and externally, in order to achieve it.”

• CFO.com, (2015). ‘How Strategic Is Your Supply Chain?’. Online <http://ww2.cfo.com/supply-chain/2015/11/strategic-supply-chain/>

The article explores how Chief Financial Officers can contribute to ensuring a strategically sound supply chain operation due to the growing complexity of managing and sourcing products and services globally.

The pull quote from this article refers to organisations losing touch to what it classes as value to the business, because of the central focus on reducing costs and minimising risk. We understand that for businesses it is essential to get the best value for money in their purchasing and procurement departments and that their bottom line is to make reductions in costs and manage risks; However we do agree with the statement that to gain value to the business, the organisation must collaborate more, both internally and externally.

It is stated in the article that for one organisation found Strategic Sourcing was an obstacle to being successful. Buying bulk products appear to best value for money by reduce prices, however it can lead to a high degree of obsolescence and waste. The article continues to highlight by reducing obsolescence it would not only reduce further costs and value down the line but also help ensure that customers received the most up to date, modern equipment or product.

‘Reducing cost and managing risk are important, but not at the cos of future growth and customer satisfaction’

The article continues to evaluate what CFO’s could do to provide greater value than just reducing costs and minimising risks; It proposes that more internal departments should work together to build a corporate strategy that is more efficient and effective.

In our experience of providing contract management systems to organisations in both the public and private sector, we find communication between procurement, purchasing and facilities departments becomes a large scale issue because of inefficient ways to manage data and track contracts between each department.

Our Contract Management Systems are providing departments new ways of communicating, by providing a central platform so they can access data anytime and anywhere; bringing the department the most up-to-date information on contracts and suppliers so nothing is missed or duplicated in the process.

Efficiently collaborating internal and even external departments with online Contract Management Systems to manage contracts and supply chain data can create valuable benefits to a business. Contracts and supply chain data that is collaboratively and strategically managed can not only reduce costs and minimise risk but can help create longer negotiation times for more improved and informed decision making.

In our Contract Management Systems we also offer a Supplier login to help manager collaborative working with external contacts. Not only does the functionality enable team members to save time and do more valuable activities than chasing up suppler documentation; The supplier login enables the suppliers to upload any documents relevant to contracts, and job orders to ensure businesses are managing their contacts in the most cost effective, efficient and compliant way.

The article finishes with the statement,

‘The opportunity to use the supply chain to drive organisation strategy and innovation is at your fingertips.’

Simple to use and providing instantly visibility for collaborative departments, Contract Management Systems are enabling organisations to finally have the control over their contracts and supplier data, so they can strategically handle the growing global market.