State of Flux launch their 2012 SRM survey – now sell-side and buy-side

17 Jul 2012 State of Flux launch their 2012 SRM survey – now sell-side and buy-side

This month, State of Flux, the London based procurement and supply chain consultancy, has launched its fourth annual Global SRM Survey 2012 which is, for the first time, divided into two areas: a buy-side survey to validate the procurement and supply chain perspective and a sell-side survey that captures the account team perspective of SRM. The new approach should provide one of the fairest reviews to date of both the supplier and the customer experiences of current SRM globally.

Supplier relationship management (SRM) is about developing two-way, mutually beneficial relationships with your most strategic supply partners that deliver greater levels of innovation and competitive advantage than could be achieved by operating independently. It consists of collaborative and relationship-building activities that are additional and complementary to supplier performance. It also involves contract management activities performed throughout the procurement lifecycle.

The SRM Survey research is designed to give you the ability to benchmark your SRM activities against some global leaders and your peer group and already some of the world’s largest organisations have responded. Last year more than 300 companies took part and used the results to inform their supplier programmes, so we are urging organisations to get involved and complete the survey before it closes at the end of this month.

The Global SRM Survey 2012 covers:

• How suppliers are benefiting from participation in SRM programmes.
• The extent to which SRM programmes aid the working of strategic relationships in practice.
• Key success factors, and barriers, to effective collaboration and co-innovation.
• Customer behaviours, practices and dynamics that suppliers value the most.

Early indications show that:

• Buyers are seeing cost and risk reduction as key. They also recognise suppliers’ innovative ideas as a chief benefit of SRM programmes, listed only behind cost and risk reduction.
• Suppliers see the opportunity to sell additional adjacent services to their strategic customers, bringing the two parties closer together and realising additional value. They also recognise the benefit of better access to senior stakeholders, greater trust and engagement when working on continuous improvement ideas.

Responses to the survey will be treated confidentially and every participant will receive a complimentary copy of the report later in the year. This will contain full results, objective analysis and a comparison with the available sell-side responses. We hope that the more participants who invite their key suppliers to take part in the survey the closer we will get to creating the most balanced perspective of the current state of SRM.