Partner Article

How do you score on the supplier four?

The Preferred Supplier is a new business support initiative brought to you exclusively on Bdaily by Malcolm Gallagher of BizVision and his expert partners. Over the coming months you’ll gain from a growing collection of incisive articles here on Bdaily and other support activity to help you become and stay The Preferred Supplier.

Over the last few weeks we’ve had some frenetic activity at The Preferred Supplier with our inaugural launch, lots of input from both suppliers and buyers and numerous meetings as we steer a path for the concept.

But one thing has arisen a number of times.

I’ve been by many what I think are the essential attributes of a great supplier. I’m not talking skills, resources or facilities here but instead the spine or the core that gives form to the selected or differentiated supplier. My suggestion to you is that the difference lies in the four core areas of CRIC - Committed, Resilient, Innovative and Compliant.

Here’s a brief overview of each of CRIC. Read through and think how they apply to you and how you score with each of the four.

Committed is about a commitment to continuous improvement and the ability to be evidential about that improvement. Now, wrapped up in this is commitment to quality, commitment to consistency and commitment to customer service. It’s also about “keeping your promise to your customer” such as commitment to delivery on time.

Far too many suppliers reckon they are committed to say quality because they have ISO qualification but forget that it is daily living that commitment that sets the excellent apart from the average.

You can measure yourself and be evidential in your commitment by using The Preferred Supplier balanced scorecard.

Resilience was something addressed by Nick Edgar, of IP Group when speaking at our The Preferred Supplier event (download here). Resilience is not totally internal, for example about your financial strength, but also external about resilience within your own supply chain and the market your serve. Start thinking, how strong and reliable are your suppliers because that’s what your customer is likely also thinking if they are to select you?

Innovative is to-day becoming an abused word! My Preferred Supplier team colleague, Charles Sellers, is an acclaimed expert on innovation and passionate about the need to start thinking what is true innovation. When I talk about innovative actions he makes me think if it is truly innovative by asking is it the same as, similar too or different than. I can’t stress how important innovation is in being the preferred supplier but, at the same time, it has to be true innovation.

Compliance is something far too many suppliers hope will go away – but it won’t! A recent survey showed that 54% of companies expect compliance demands to increase this coming year with only 2% thinking it will decline. But compliance is an all-embracing word.

Compliance in what? It differs across company, organisation and sector but don’t ignore the essentials of inclusion, environmental and health and safety.

CRIC is my core four attributes or make-up of a selected or preferred supplier. Have I missed anything truly essential? How do you measure up to the four? Where is the biggest challenge?

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Preferred Supplier .