When it comes to effectively managing business commerce, locating the best suppliers and negotiating the best agreements are a good start. But it’s only the beginning. To be successful, companies must constantly discover, assess, and on board new trading partners, ensure that their information is accurate and up-to-date, and continuously measure and improve upon performance. Yet many buyers and suppliers struggle to do this.
According to Gartner, managing supplier information manually is a costly drain on business—in some cases more than $1,000 per supplier on an annual basis. But it doesn’t have to be. When information—enabled by technology—becomes visible across the organization, costs per supplier quickly fall to below $150. Yet achieving complete visibility on supplier information isn’t easy and there are a number of challenges that make it difficult: