Good vendor relationships are the cornerstone to resilient sourcing operations
“Understanding … your spend will not only help your company grow, but help your suppliers grow as well,” finds Stimulus founder and CEO, Tiffanie Stanard
This interview was conducted at Reuters Events: Supply Chain USA (May 17-18, Chicago, 2023).
A healthy retail economy results from a well-oiled supply chain orchestrated by diverse stakeholders working together to produce and move products. A crucial component of this intricate system is vendor management — a part of operations that, unfortunately, often get sidelined, with company leadership merely maintaining a passive interest in ensuring its smooth operation rather than actively investing in its optimization.
Vendor relationship intelligence platform Stimulus addresses this oversight by providing tools and insights that empower businesses to proactively nurture and optimise their vendor relationships. Stimulus combines data insights, relationship-building tools, and a proprietary score to help clients make better purchasing decisions.
“I’ve been in vendor management for almost 20 years,” says founder and CEO, Tiffanie Stanard. “What I saw from being on multiple platforms is that there’s not a lot of emphasis put into how vendor relationships start between the buyer and the supplier.” Through Stimulus, vendor relationships are transformed and digitalised, fostering robust partnerships that drive mutual benefits and enhanced collaboration for all participants.
Managing vendor relationships is vital; considering resilient sourcing operations determines the company’s fortunes during times of uncertainty and tight supply. For instance, companies with shaky vendor relationships suffered during the pandemic, as logistics bottlenecks, strained supply chains, and high consumer demand caused inventories to run dry.
“Our platform really helps with resilience in the modern supply chain by offering them data to make more data-driven decisions. Whether you’re trying to diversify your supply chain, focus on sustainability, or purchase locally — we can help you optimise, and save time and money,” says Stanard.
With better visibility into supply chains, companies realise the importance of diversifying their sourcing operations, looking to circumvent supply risks by redundancy. This has led to an increase in companies actively seeking better relationships with their suppliers. “Understanding the Tier 1s, Tier 2s, and the Tier 3s across the supply chain is really important,” points out Stanard. “Understanding how you look at your spend will not only help your company grow, but help your suppliers grow as well.”
Interested in finding out more about Supply Chain USA 2024 (22-23 May, Atlanta)? Then click here.