Engaging effectively with suppliers is essential but often a buying organisation can become overwhelmed by the sheer number of interactions with all their suppliers, including keeping supplier profiles and catalogues up to date, requesting quotes, issuing tender documents, handling PO and invoice transactions, monitoring contract dates and terms and answering questions about payment status.

Adding to the volume of interactions is the variety of ways you are expected to communicate with suppliers including post, email, phone calls, with some contact in a more conversational style but other occasions calling for formal questionnaires and public tenders.

All of which is time consuming and steals time away from a procurement officer’s ability to review pricing, seek proposals and negotiate agreements, the very things they are judged by and that the business sees as the prime source of value generation.

The options to deal with this all seem either unrealistic or unlikely; hire more people, work longer hours or become faster at re-keying information, all while somehow managing and rationalising the number of suppliers without knowing enough about them.