December 6, 2023
When running a business, not only do you need to source compliant service providers, but you also need to ensure effective supplier performance management.
Finding compliant suppliers with the right skills and qualifications can be challenging. But it’s vital for protecting your brand reputation and controlling quality across the board. It’s all about looking at the evidence and questioning whether they will be the right fit for you.
Ask yourself: Do they have the right qualifications? Are they experienced? Do they align with your ESG values? What is their financial status? Of course, these questions will depend on your business’ overarching goals and priorities.
Once you’ve chosen your suppliers, you must then monitor and track their performance to make sure they are consistently meeting your standards and requirements. In this article, we’ll discuss how to source compliant suppliers and contractors, as well as how to streamline supplier performance management.
- Why do you need compliant suppliers and contractors?
- What is the impact of choosing the wrong suppliers?
- How can you source qualified and compliant contractors?
- Why is supplier performance management essential?
- How can SCM software help you better manage your supply chain?
Why do you need compliant suppliers and contractors?
Reliable suppliers and contractors not only ensure the timely delivery of goods and services, but also contribute significantly to the overall stability of a business. Ensuring compliance means choosing suppliers who aligns with regulatory standards and ethical practices. But why does compliance matter?
If the contractors you work with fail to meet regulatory standards, your business could face severe legal repercussions. This could reflect poorly on your professional reputation, and you could even lose relationships with existing clients.
Businesses that select reliable and compliant suppliers find themselves free from supply chain disruptions, legal pitfalls, and reputational risks. That’s why defining a supplier selection process is so important—it’s about building lasting partnerships that reduce risk, improve brand reputation, and give you peace of mind.
What is the impact of choosing the wrong suppliers?
Working with poor-performing suppliers doesn’t just reflect badly on them, but also on your business. By choosing the wrong service providers, you could experience financial loss, damage your reputation, and lose crucial investors.
Partnering with suppliers and contractors who cannot evidence health and safety credentials can pose significant risks to your company. If one of your providers fails can’t demonstrate their commit to workplace safety, it may result in accidents or injuries, leading to legal liabilities, worker compensation claims, and hefty fines.
In the food and drink manufacturing industry, for example, health, safety, and compliance is crucial. Service providers need to have the appropriate verifications, qualifications and insurance relating to health and safety in place. Supply chain management (SCM) software can be especially useful here as it gives the key stakeholders the ability to manage the levels of health, safety and compliance that is required.
It’s also important to check the financial health of your service providers. The impact of not carrying out these checks can be extremely risky. There are countless businesses who have experienced failed projects and financial loss because they didn’t check the financial status of their suppliers and contractors. The aftermath? Your company might find itself entangled in a dangerous financial predicament—losses in investments, unexpected costs, and the looming threat of potential lawsuits.
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is another major consideration when trying to source complaint suppliers. Working with contractors who lacks a commitment to sustainability can seriously harm your business’ sustainability goals. To evaluate potential partners’ ESG practices, you need to establish clear criteria in the supplier selection process.
Ultimately, a lack of adherence to safety standards can tarnish your company’s reputation, resulting in customer distrust and loss of business. So, key stakeholders need to know they can trust your business to work with compliant, financially stable suppliers who uphold your values and meet your requirements.
However, ensuring quality and compliance can be difficult without the support of technology, like SCM software.
How can you source qualified and compliant contractors?
When sourcing suppliers and contractors, there are a few things you need to consider:
Setting Criteria
All suppliers and contractors should meet the same ethical standards that your company upholds. So, you need to put a realistic process in place to ensure that suppliers are meeting your specific requirements. With Prosure360, you can set bespoke questions with our pre-qualified assessment, set around the SSIP core criteria. This gives you the background knowledge needed to make an informed choice about the suppliers and contractors work with.
Streamlining Communication
Regular communication with your suppliers is a must. Supply chain management is directly linked to maintaining strong, collaborative relationships with your suppliers. By staying in the loop with your suppliers and contractors, you can also make sure that they are meeting your expectations and performing at their peak.
Update Key Information
With spreadsheets, supplier information can become outdated very easily. This is dangerous because the status of your suppliers and contractors could change at any moment. Using real-time data makes it much simpler to keep important information up-to-date and ensure supplier qualifications are still up to scratch.
Supply Chain Management Software
Sourcing the right suppliers and contractors is a much easier task with supply chain management software. With real-time data, SCM software can help you monitor supplier performance and define a streamlined process for selecting suppliers.
Why is supplier performance management essential?
Supplier performance management is vital for taking full control of your supply chain, ensuring quality, consistency, and compliance. By proactively evaluating and addressing performance metrics, businesses can identify areas for improvement, mitigate risks, and maintain a competitive edge.
A company is largely defined by the strength of its network and the performance of its suppliers. That’s why tracking performance is essential in maintaining the reputation and integrity of your business. Working with high-performing suppliers can help you:
- Avoid supply chain disruptions.
- Mitigate financial risk.
- Improve stakeholder relationships.
- Drive efficiencies and improve productivity.
- Boost brand reputation.
Supply chain management software, like Prosure360, is the ultimate solution for sourcing compliant suppliers and simplifying supplier performance management.
How can SCM software help you better manage your supply chain?
When it comes to supplier management, real-time data is the key to success. Prosure360 uses real time data to give you total visibility of your suppliers’ insurances, professional memberships, and financial status. Our unique software allows you to easily monitor and report on supplier performance, ensuring compliance and enabling informed decision-making.
In Prosure360, suppliers and contractors are required to upload accurate data, and the platform ensures it comes from a viable source. The software allows you to set bespoke questions and pre-qualified assessments, set around the SSIP core criteria. This gives you the insight you need to find suitable suppliers for your business.
The SSIP certification is worth its weight in gold because it enables you to evidence the health and safety credentials of your suppliers. We provide SSIP assessments which we’ve now extended to include Republic of Ireland Duty Holder Categories. Only a handful of SSIP approved providers can offer this, so Prosure360 is unique because it can deliver the SSIP, specific to the IE market.
Supply chain management software, like Prosure360, reduces risk in the supply chain. Using a red flag alert system, we give the service providers a risk score of gold, silver, bronze, or amber. This system ensures you can track your service providers’ performance and make an informed choice about whether to work with them.
With full control of your supply chain, Prosure360 helps you drive efficiencies, streamline operational processes, and minimise the likelihood of supply chain disruptions. Ultimately, SCM software helps businesses enhance supplier performance and build robust, resilient supply chains.
Take supplier performance management to the next level with Prosure360! Book a demo today to start your journey with us.
