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Commercial Courses:

• Commercial Awareness Training
• Commercial Negotiation and Agreements
• Commercial Risk Management
• Creating Requests for Information
• Cross Border Business Development
• Cross-cultural Business Awareness
• Effective Project Management
• Finance for Non-Financial Managers
• Multi-cultural Business
• Negotiation in International Business
• Practical Specification Writing
• Procurement Best Practice
• Responding to Requests for Information
• Successful Outsourcing
• Supplier Mangement Strategies
• The Commercial Engineer

Supplier management strategies, including service level agreements and partnerships

Duration
2 days.

What is this course about?
Supplier management can involve merely the financial aspects of being invoiced, checking the invoice, passing for payment or query and then chasing for payment if the supplier is not paid in a timely manner. At the other end of the spectrum, it can involve a much greater engagement with the supplier so that more complex deals can be addressed and managed.

Partnership is a concept that is often introduced into such more complex areas and this is both fraught and valuable depending upon how it is handled and expectations that are created just by using the term. It is the basis of more misunderstandings than one might expect and the term should be used sparingly and effectively.

By looking at the spectrum of relationships between a customer and a supplier, we explore the different issues, looking at the areas from a double perspective: it is easier to understand a supplier if the supplier's perspective is part of the approach.

The relationship may develop in unexpected ways, including joint ventures and even take overs, and this is covered as well as part of the whole process. In addition, the role of distributors is also considered as distributors are both suppliers and customers and demand special treatment.

While aimed principally at customers or clients managing suppliers, it can be beneficial to suppliers as a good perspective on making relationships more effective and more cost effective.

Who would benefit?

• Contract managers
• Senior management
• Board members

Objectives

• Ensuring clarity around the relationships with suppliers
• Providing frameworks for the cost-effective management of suppliers - getting away from the usual paradigm which is that most management focus is devoted to difficult suppliers without considering the economic benefits
• When and how to use distributors
• Delineating how to terminate agreements - a costly process - as a last resort
• Finding the most appropriate model for each relationship
• Creating and managing service level agreements (SLAs)
• Assessment of the effectiveness and costs of supplier management.

Key topics covered

• Analysis of the types of relationship that are appropriate
• Finding the most appropriate relationship for each situation
• Suppliers: the value proposition and costs
• Distributors and their value and costs
• Partnerships: their values and costs
• SLAs
• Ending inappropriate commercial relationships.

Course programme

1. Analysis of the types of relationship that can be appropriate

• 1.1. Supplier
• 1.2. Partnership
• 1.3. Joint bidder
• 1.4. Joint venture
• 1.5. Distributor

2. Ensuring that the most appropriate commercial relationship is selected

• 2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of each type of relationship
• 2.2 Costs involved in each type of relationship
• 2.3 Return on investment issues with each type of relationship
• 2.4 How to select the best relationship

3. Suppliers

• 3.1 Setting expectations
• 3.2 Maintaining the right or appropriate distance
• 3.3 How do you know if you are successful
• 3.4 How to make the relationship more cost effective

4. Partners:

• 4.1 Setting expectations
• 4.2 Maintaining the right or appropriate distance
• 4.3 Creating the right environment - partner value creation
• 4.4 How do you know if you are successful
• 4.5 How to make the relationship more cost effective
• 4.6 Partnership management planning

5. Joint bidder

• 5.1 Setting expectations
• 5.2 Maintaining the right or appropriate distance
• 5.3 How do you know if you are successful
• 5.4 How to make the relationship more cost effective

6. Joint venture

• 6.1 Setting expectations
• 6.2 Ensuring that it is a win win relationship
• 6.3 Costs and benefits
• 6.4 How do you know if you are successful
• 6.5 How to make the relationship more cost effective

7. Distributor

• 7.1 Setting expectations
• 7.2 Maintaining the right or appropriate distance
• 7.3 Costs and benefits
• 7.4 How do you know if you are successful
• 7.5 How to make the relationship more cost effective
• 7.6 Distributor management planning

8. Assessing the value of the relationship

• 8.1 Cost benefit issues
• 8.2 Indirect costs - for example IPR issues
• 8.3 Indirect benefits
• 8.4 Eliminating costs

9. Creating and managing SLAs

• 9.1 Objectives of SLAs
• 9.2 Planning and implementing SLAs
• 9.3 Managing SLAs
• 9.4 Reviewing SLAs
• 9.5 Their value and their costs (be careful what you measure because that is what you will gain)

10. Evaluating your performance in supplier management

• 10.1 Issues to be considered
• 10.2 Leading indicators
• 10.3 Training indicators

Course outcomes

• Greater confidence in dealing with supplier management issues
• Greater clarity about which commercial relationship is most appropriate
• Real understanding of the benefits and dysbenefits of a partnership relationship
• Real understanding of the benefits and dysbenefits of a distributor relationship
• Greater clarity and understanding of SLAs and how to create, monitor and review them
• Better understanding of what win-win actually means in practice
• A better, stronger and more productive relationship between the contracting parties.