Business case meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Overview

• We lack a clear overview of what services we buy from which suppliers, with what kind of contracts.
• Supplier management is the function/process/practice systematically ensuring that we receive the services in the agreed quality, and that internal and supplier stakeholders work well together.
• We propose the adoption of a systematized and standardized supplier management process to increase the control of suppliers, delivery quality, and costs.

Goal

• We structure the communication, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration between internal and supplier stakeholders.
• We increase satisfaction with the delivered services and standardize and consolidate the supplier, contract, and service landscape.
• We ensure that fast and reliable supplier delivery challenges get service delivery back to normal.

Objectives

• Maximize the satisfaction of internal stakeholders with suppliers.
• Minimize the number of business interruptions resulting from supplier service interruptions.
• Maximize the percentage of externally sourced services (compared to internally produced services).

Challenge

• We need management of external suppliers that comes into effect after the sourcing/procurement process.
• We need management of external suppliers between strategy and operations.
• We need to ensure the delivery of the agreed IT services based on the closed contracts.

Possible solutions

• We don’t see a need for a distinctive supplier management process.
• We integrate supplier management activities into our existing processes and teams.
• We set up a dedicated supplier management process with a small dedicated team.

Solution recommendation

• The supplier management process is an effective, efficient, and sustainable approach to increase satisfaction with external suppliers’ service delivery.
• The setup of a supplier management approach takes some time, but according to the Pareto principle fast success should be possible (80% of the process setup can be achieved 20% of the time).
• The supplier management process will bring quick results for increasing service delivery and improving future sourcing projects and our existing contract templates.

Benefits

• We’ll measurably increase the quality of external services delivery.
• Our own solutions will be of a higher quality due to the increased quality of the suppliers’ services.
• We reduce the organization’s risk of failures and major incidents due to a lack of communication and/or understanding between internal stakeholders and suppliers’ stakeholders.

Limitations

• The supplier management process depends on a number of other processes to properly work and have an effect on the organization’s performance.
• The supplier management process requires continual improvement, instead of being done once and forgotten.
• Supplier management needs the right amount of resources, especially one to two full-time employees initially and 1/2 FTE once set up.

Procurement

• Initially, supplier management doesn’t need its own services or technology solutions.
• Further down the line, a software tool can help structure supplier relationships and collect regular standardized data and information sets.
• External consulting can help set up the process faster and with less effort.

Budget

• We recommend an internal budget of one FTE for half a year to set up the supplier management process.
• We recommend a budget of 20k EUR - 50k EUR for consulting services in the setup phase.
• We recommend an ongoing resource planning of 1-2 FTE for the running supplier management process.

Risks

• We don’t have the expertise and experience to set up a supplier management process.
• We don’t invest a sufficient amount of resources to set up the supplier management process.
• We don’t find the right consulting firm to support us with setting up a supplier management process (e.g., too slow, too complex, too much talking).

Risk mitigation

• We focus on practices and templates instead of process flowcharts and standard operating procedures.
• We ask our internal stakeholders about their need for supplier management support.
• We find an efficient consulting firm with a lean consulting approach.

Outline plan

1. We align our internal stakeholders on the project and the expected outcomes.
2. We gather the current supplier, contract, and service landscape.
3. We determine simple practices for the operational teams working with the suppliers on a day-to-day basis.
4. We plan regular (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly) supplier meetings and create meeting templates.
5. We set up supplier performance measurement interviews and surveys to learn about our internal stakeholders’ perceptions of our suppliers.
6. We create supplier management tables to keep data & information together.

Required resources

• We’ll set up the supplier management process with one FTE.
• We need external consulting services for good practice transfer and to coach our project team.
• We need some time from many operational people and stakeholders of various teams and functions.

Timescale

• We’ll need half a year to set up the initial supplier management process.
• We aim to make progress step by step on a weekly basis.
• Our progress depends on finding slots to work with other teams and functions.

Project management

• We manage this project, including all the activities necessary to make it a success.
• We continually report to all involved stakeholders about the current status and changes of the plan.
• We develop supplier management good practices, for future use by related organizations.

Follow-up email

Project planning meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Project integration

• We lead and manage this project by reducing the friction that could occur working in several project teams and/or sub-projects.
• We coordinate the project by the project team in collaboration with superiors, sponsors, and stakeholders.
• The project team includes the people who will later manage the supplier management process, reducing friction from project to process.

Project scope

• The project aims to set up a supplier management process to increase satisfaction with external suppliers and their services.
• The project includes all tasks until supplier management operations are up and running.
• The project doesn’t include setting up some activities that are considered as supplier management activities by some management frameworks (e.g., technology/innovation/supplier scouting).

Project schedule

• The goal is to execute the project in the next six months.
• The schedule includes all steps from the first meeting to achieving a working supplier management process.
• The project has external dependencies, especially aligning with other teams and functions.

Project costs

• The project has calculatory internal costs.
• Hiring an external consultant costs 20k EUR - 50k EUR.
• The ongoing supplier management process will account for 1-2 FTE.

Project quality

• The project will conduct evaluation activities before designing and implementing the final supplier management process.
• The project will be in close contact with a wide array of stakeholders to elicit and implement their requirements with the desired quality.
• The project team will determine and discuss project quality criteria and is open to feedback from employees, superiors, sponsors, and stakeholders.

Project resources

• We set up a project team integrating the different workstreams of this project.
• The project team is the single point of contact for all superiors, sponsors, and stakeholders.
• The project team will (partly) transition to the process team and/or will properly train the process team.

Project communications

• The project team is the single point of contact and the single source of truth for all employees, superiors, sponsors, and stakeholders.
• The project team values high-quality written documentation in addition to verbal explanations in meetings.
• The project team will use mass distribution communication to inform employees about the project, including future processes.

Project risks

• The project has some risks regarding the internal project team’s expertise and experience in supplier management.
• The project has risks regarding the interests, wants, and needs of the various stakeholders.
• The project has risks regarding the time and effort needed to fully execute the project until the supplier management process is running.

Project procurement

• The project includes the procurement of consulting services.
• The project doesn’t include the procurement of a supplier management software tool.
• The project doesn’t include the procurement of IT services (this is part of sourcing projects).

Project stakeholders

• Sponsor: The project sponsor has a true interest in improving relationships with suppliers and service delivery quality.
• Future users: Future users will use the established process to manage suppliers and increase the service delivery quality.
• Primary stakeholders: The primary stakeholders are the other teams and functions currently working with external suppliers.

Follow-up

Project communication and information meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Project communication

• We communicate via email with a shared inbox to ensure that we receive all emails and everyone stays in the loop.
• We communicate via an email distribution list to internal stakeholders to ensure that we don’t forget anyone.
• We communicate regularly so that everyone stays up to date.

Project coordination

• We coordinate activities with sponsors, internal stakeholders, and external suppliers.
• We coordinate the project and all activities centrally due to the small project size.
• We coordinate the task distribution in written form and with regular meetings, instead of ad hoc.

Project cooperation

• We cooperate with our project sponsor to ensure all targets are met.
• We cooperate with internal stakeholders, especially service operations teams.
• We cooperate with external suppliers to include their expertise and experience in our future processes.

Project collaboration

• We collaborate in shared text documents and tables.
• We collaborate on wiki pages to see changes in real-time.
• We prefer cooperation instead of collaboration on documents, in order to reduce discussions about written output.

Project information

• We update our sponsor and internal stakeholders regularly and communicate any new information immediately.
• We inform external suppliers about this project and our target of setting up a process.
• We inform our project members about new developments in time, preferably through written asynchronous channels (e.g., email, wiki chapters).

Follow-up email

Stakeholder alignment meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Supplier management in a nutshell

• Supplier management ensures high-quality service delivery by external suppliers.
• Supplier management works with internal stakeholders and external suppliers to improve the suppliers’ service performance.
• Better, faster, cheaper external service delivery contributes to better, faster, cheaper customer solutions.

• Effective: Supplier management ensures externally delivered services meet the agreed targets.
• Efficient: Supplier management ensures that externally delivered services meet the agreed targets with the least costs.
• Sustainable: Supplier management ensures that we improve services for the long term (compared to solving short-term incidents and problems).

• Plan: We plan what information to collect from suppliers, how to ask internal stakeholders about service quality requirements, and how to set up regular supplier meetings.
• Build: We design templates for regular activities and introduce them to internal stakeholders and external suppliers.
• Run: We guide internal stakeholders and external suppliers through the first structured meetings.

The supplier management setup project

• Determining the supplier management project plan
• Calculating the costs for the organization
• Determining the project methodology

• Design the supplier management activities
• Design meeting templates, interview guides, and surveys
• Test the created outcomes

• Collect supplier data regularly and in a structured manner
• Run regular structured supplier meetings
• Run regular internal stakeholder interviews and surveys

The operational supplier management process

• The suppliers provide their reporting in the format we require it.
• The internal stakeholders read the written reports and evaluate the verbal reports generated from those initial reports.
• The internal stakeholders provide their opinion of the supplier management process through interviews and surveys.

• The internal stakeholders discuss the suppliers’ performance with the suppliers’ point of contact.
• The internal stakeholders understand current challenges and develop approaches for improvement together with the suppliers.
• The internal stakeholders and external suppliers agree on improvement plans.

• The suppliers improve their service delivery in measurable ways.
• The internal stakeholders develop long-term innovation plans to deepen the cooperation.

The advantages of a supplier management process

• The supplier management process improves suppliers’ service performance.
• The supplier management process improves the cooperation between internal stakeholders and suppliers.
• The supplier management process improves our customer solutions due to better inputs and production quality.

• The supplier management process increases the speed of service improvement development and implementation.
• The supplier management process increases the speed of communication between internal stakeholders and suppliers.
• The supplier management process increases the speed of customer solution quality improvement development and implementation.

• The supplier management process reduces transaction (e.g., management) costs.
• The supplier management process reduces costs due to low service performance.
• The supplier management process reduces costs through more outsourcing to specialized (and therefore cheaper than internal delivery) suppliers.

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interviews preparation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why do we conduct stakeholder interviews?

• Stakeholders have different challenges/requirements/preferences.
• We want to learn from you before we design the process.
• We want to incorporate as much feedback as possible before making decisions.

• We follow a lean approach to learning before testing and implementation.
• Broad and deep feedback is necessary.
• We’re open to killing the project if the feedback is “net negative.”

• Share your thoughts.
• Make your feedback tangible.
• Share your feedback at any time (not only in these interviews).

How will we conduct stakeholder interviews?

• Invitation via email.
• Broad selection of appointment dates and times.
• Flexible date and time change possible.

• One-hour web meeting.
• No preparation needed.
• Time for Q&A and individual feedback.

• Semi-structured interview.
• Ten questions in one hour.
• Feedback at the end and updates after the interview.

What questions will we ask?

1. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding suppliers’ service performance?
2. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding cooperation with our organization’s suppliers?
3. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding support in managing our organization’s suppliers?
4. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding time investment for supplier management?
5. What are your problems/requirements/preferences regarding our organization’s supplier management?
6. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding standard operating procedures to manage our organization’s suppliers?
7. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding templates to manage our organization’s suppliers?
8. What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding supplier management software tools?
9. Do you have any other challenges/requirements/preferences?

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interview meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Question 1

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding suppliers’ service performance?

Question 2

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding cooperation with our organization’s suppliers?

Question 3

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding support in managing our organization’s suppliers?

Question 4

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding time investment for supplier management?

The supplier management process

• User segment: Internal stakeholders working with our organization’s external suppliers.
• Early adopter: Selected internal stakeholders with their selected external suppliers.
• Problem: Managing suppliers isn’t based on a systematized and standardized process.
• Existing alternatives: Continual supplier management with low maturity level and in various ways.
• Solution: The organization designs and implements a structured supplier management process.
• Value proposition: Continual improvement of supplier relationships and service performance.
• Cost structure: External consulting fees and internal FTEs are necessary to set up the supplier management process.
• Implementation process: Lean planning, interviews, surveys, regular supplier reporting, regular meeting design, regular surveys.
• Adoption process: Gradual rollout to all operational teams with supplier relationships.
• Continual improvement: The future supplier management team continually improves the process with more (and better) practices and templates.

Question 5

• What are your problems/requirements/preferences regarding our organization’s supplier management?

Question 6

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding standard operating procedures to manage our organization’s suppliers?

Question 7

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding templates to manage our organization’s suppliers?

Question 8

• What are your challenges/requirements/preferences regarding supplier management software tools?

Question 9

• Do you have any other challenges/requirements/preferences?

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interviews results meeting

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Meeting information

Interview results

• Supplier management is a necessary capability.
• Our organization must increase the maturity of the supplier management capability.
• Setting up a process makes sense.
• Stakeholders prefer good practices, standard operating procedures, and templates.
• A limited number of flowcharts would support the process understanding.

Question 1

• Incidents and problems aren’t followed through in a systematic way
• Performance measurement doesn’t recognize all issues
• No systematic performance improvement approach

Question 2

• Limited systematic measurement
• No systematic way to discuss performance issues with suppliers
• No internal coordination on how to manage suppliers

Question 3

• No supplier management process/practices/procedures
• No central authority to discuss supplier issues
• No plan to set anything up yet

Question 4

• Supplier management isn’t my core task
• Supplier management can be time intensive
• No long-term supplier management possible

Question 5

• No systematic supplier management at all
• Until now, there has been no intention to set up a supplier management capability
• No systematic supplier management activities in other functions/teams

Question 6

• Text should be concise and simple to understand
• No long texts or hard-to-understand flowcharts
• Integration with workflow software

Question 7

• Should be easy to understand
• Should be based on workflow software instead of PDFs
• Should be integrated with workflows and SOPs

Question 8

• Easy to use
• Please, not another process-specific software
• Use of existing software tools instead

Question 9

• More systematic processes, SOPs, and templates needed in other areas
• Interviews about other process areas would be useful
• Hard to find documentation about internal processes

Follow-up email

Solution options meeting

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Meeting information

Option 1: Minimum supplier management capability

• The minimum capability includes basic templates for individual interactions between internal stakeholders and external suppliers.
• The minimum capability includes a small number of basic standard operating procedures to help individual operational teams.
• The minimum capability doesn’t include a harmonized measurement, interaction, and feedback system.

Option 2: Standard supplier management capability

• The usual capability includes standardized measurements systems, standard operating procedures, and templates for harmonized supplier management throughout our organization.
• The usual capability includes standardized tables for measurement activities throughout all suppliers and contracts.
• The usual capability doesn’t include the strategic role of supplier management and dedicated software tools for supplier management.

Option 3: Strategic supplier management capability

• The strategic supplier management solution includes sophisticated measurements systems, standard operating procedures, and templates for well-advanced supplier management throughout the organization and together with related organizations (in the customer role).
• Strategic supplier management discusses how supplier relations at the highest level of the organization can follow a strategic outsourcing approach.
• The strategic supplier management capability leaves technology innovation and supplier scouting, sourcing, and other functions with other teams, but integrates these capabilities more than usual.

Follow-up email

Sourcing function alignment meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

What the sourcing function does

• Discussing service sourcing and service requirements with business units.
• Sourcing new services, contracts, and suppliers.
• Designing contracts and supplier relationships.

What the supplier management function does

• Managing existing supplier relationships.
• Executing existing contracts and supplier relationships.
• Improving suppliers’ service delivery performance.

What we do together

• Understanding each other's processes.
• Designing common process interfaces.
• Developing shared templates and workflows.

How we meet and align

• Meeting regularly and aligning processes.
• Developing our functions together.
• Explaining our tasks and accountabilities to business stakeholders together.

Follow-up email

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• Table structures are a precondition of the initial supplier landscape elicitation and the ongoing supplier management activities.
• Table structures are a possible framework for processes and procedures and work in conjunction with standard operating procedures.
• Table structures are the input to create forms and templates as part of process/workflow management.

How

• What information do we want to collect?
• What information do our internal stakeholders need?
• What information do our suppliers need?
• What information does the sourcing function need?
• What information does the technology supplier innovation team need?
• What information do the operational teams need?
• What information does the procurement function need?
• What information does the finance function need?

Suppliers table

• Supplier name
• Identifier
• Category
• Contract value
• Contracts
• Our relationship owner
• Preference evaluation
• Preference rationale
• Preference status
• Provider/vendor relationship owner
• Relationship summary
• Services/solutions
• Status

Contracts table

• Contract name
• Identifier
• Supplier
• Agreement date
• Category
• Notes
• Notice period
• Our owner
• Renewal process start date
• Services
• Start & end date
• Status

Services/Projects table

• Service name
• Identifier
• Contract
• Category
• Description
• Notes
• Our owner
• Renewal process start date
• Start & end date
• Status

Reports table

• Report name
• Supplier, contract, service/project
• Category
• Date
• Summary
• Attachment
• Service level #1
• Service level #2
• Service level #n
• Escalation comment (internal)
• Status (internal)

Sourcing projects

• Sourcing project name
• Identifier
• Category
• Date
• Our owner
• Priority
• Scope
• Status
• Value

Audits/reviews

• Audit/review name
• Identifier
• Supplier, contract, service/project
• Auditors
• Date
• Category
• Results
• Feedback
• Improvement plan
• Status
• Attachment

Follow-up email

Invitation email

Meeting information

Goal

• An overview of our current supplier landscape is the first step before getting into the supplier management details.
• A supplier landscape analysis provides hints on the supplier management function and process design.
• The supplier landscape elicitation is the basis for the ongoing supplier management process (e.g., regular reporting).

Challenge

• We haven’t collected our contracts in a central place.
• Contract information is splattered around the organization.
• We don’t know which documents we’re looking for.
• We need your help to collect all supplier and contract information.

Approach

• Supplier details
• Contracts
• Contract attachments
• Service level agreements
• All other documents related to a supplier relationship

Alternative solution

• If we cannot find the contract documents, we’ll have to ask our suppliers for the contracts.
• This can be embarrassing, but it must be done as part of the supplier management process.
• We’ll inform you about the missing documents before asking our suppliers for a copy.

Follow-up email

Invitation email

Meeting information

Communication with suppliers

• Communication with many different suppliers and various internal stakeholders.
• The supplier management function designs processes and systems.
• The supplier management function doesn’t manage on a day-to-day basis.
• The supplier management function needs transparency of all communication with external suppliers but seldom directly intervenes.
• The supplier management function cannot monitor daily supplier communication due to the high number of messages sent.

• The day-to-day communication works with emails between operational teams and external suppliers.
• The supplier management function doesn’t want to get involved in daily operations with external suppliers.
• Operational teams use different software tools (e.g., email, ticket system) with their suppliers.

Information management with suppliers

• We differentiate between internal and external information.
• We classify information based on our existing classification scheme.
• We extend our organization’s information classification scheme to work with suppliers if needed.
• We continually improve our organization’s information classification scheme.

Written information

• What are our supplier communication & information categories? (e.g., operational, reporting, management meetings)
• What wiki software tool do we use to share text with suppliers?
• What table software tool do we use to share data with suppliers?
• What chat software tool do we use to communicate with suppliers?
• What asynchronous messaging software tool do we use to communicate with suppliers?
• What ticket software tool do we use to manage tasks with suppliers?
• What other software tools do we use to work with suppliers?

Follow-up email

Missing information meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Contract information is missing

• We need all relevant supplier and contract information to set up the supplier management function.
• We asked internal stakeholders to contribute the supplier and contract information they know about.
• We couldn't find some relevant supplier and contract information.

Asking suppliers for contract information

• We’ll ask our suppliers for copies of supplier and contract information.
• This isn’t as unusual as you might think.
• Even if it’s a bit embarrassing, this information is necessary to continue setting up the supplier management function.

Future avoidance

• The future supplier management function manages suppliers’ contract information.
• Central tables contain all the information, including document attachments.
• In the future, the need to ask suppliers for our closed contracts will be very unlikely.

Follow-up email

Relationship management meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• Good personal relationships are the foundation of a good work relationship.
• People must work well together as a foundation of business results.
• Poor working relationships have a direct impact on the supplier’s delivery performance.
• Bad supplier delivery performance impacts our business and our customer solutions.

Requirements

• Prussian virtues are the foundation of our interpersonal relationships: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_virtues
• Internal stakeholders and external suppliers must align on how to cooperate and collaborate together.
• Process management tools (e.g., standard operating procedures) can help to build working relationships.
• Relationships should be measurable through systems (KPI, OKR, or similar).

How

• Measurement: KPIs as part of service level agreements
• Meetings: Regular exchange with suppliers
• Interviews: Stakeholder interviews
• Surveys: Stakeholder surveys

Follow-up email

Compliance management meeting

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Meeting information

Why

• Compliance with laws and other regulations is a necessary part of every organization.
• We’re accountable for examining our suppliers’ regulatory compliance.
• Any non-compliance of our suppliers has a direct impact on our regulatory compliance system.
• Non-compliance of our organization to laws and regulations is a threat to our business and our customers.

Requirements

• We must create and maintain lists of regulatory compliance schemes.
• We must examine our suppliers’ regulatory compliance as part of a sourcing/procurement project and after the business relationship is set up.
• Regulatory compliance is an ongoing challenge due to changing regulatory requirements and changes in organizations.
• Regulatory compliance is an essential part of regular supplier reporting.

How

• Checklists
• Proof of certifications
• Reviews
• Audits

Follow-up email

Performance management meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• We need services with specific performance levels.
• Suppliers agreed to performance levels in our closed contracts.
• Suppliers are organizations like ours - sometimes performing, sometimes not so much.
• Bad supplier delivery performance impacts our business and our customer solutions.

Requirements

• We prefer managing suppliers based on performance metrics (SLA, KPI, OKR, or similar).
• We define performance metrics in various general and service-specific areas.
• We measure our suppliers’ performance through interviews and surveys, in case not enough useful performance metrics were defined in the contract phase.
• We should maintain a directory of performance metrics we can use for future contracts.

How

• Measurement: KPIs as part of service level agreements
• Meetings: Regular exchange with suppliers
• Interviews: Stakeholder interviews
• Surveys: Stakeholder surveys

Follow-up email

Satisfaction management meeting

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Meeting information

Why

• We want to be satisfied by our suppliers.
• Supplier contracts don’t have (sufficient) satisfaction measurements, and satisfaction is hard to measure.
• We want to measure many internal stakeholders' satisfaction, not only the key supplier contacts.
• Low satisfaction with suppliers impacts the working relationship with them, resulting in impacts on our business and customer solutions.

Requirements

• We want to understand the supplier satisfaction of as many internal stakeholders as possible.
• We want to understand the true supplier satisfaction, and not only the filtered one.
• We want to understand the difference between the suppliers’ performance and our people’s satisfaction, and the reasons for the difference.
• We want to compare suppliers that are hard to compare to each other.

How

• Interviews: Stakeholder interviews
• Surveys: Stakeholder surveys

Follow-up email

Reporting process meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• Regular supplier reporting is the basis for collecting structured data about which suppliers perform and how well they do it.
• Regular written reporting is the foundation for additional supplier management activities (e.g., regular internal & supplier meetings and stakeholder interviews & surveys).
• We agreed on regular reporting in some of our supplier contracts.
• We’ll ask suppliers for (additional) regular reporting about their service delivery.

How

• We establish regular supplier reporting, through which our suppliers will drop us their regular reports.
• The sourcing function (instead of the supplier management function) determines what reporting is contractually agreed upon.
• The supplier management function tries to demand reporting information that hasn’t been contractually agreed upon.
• The supplier management function designs the process of how suppliers submit their regular reports.
• The supplier management function designs how reports are stored and made internally available.

Implementation

• How did we set up our supplier management and sourcing tables?
• What software tool do we use for our tables?
• What software tool could we use to create forms?
• How could a manual report collection process work?
• How do we explain the reporting process to our suppliers?
• How do we continually improve our supplier reporting process?

Follow-up email

Reporting process supplier meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• Regular reporting is an essential part of structuring how to work together.
• Regular reporting is a usual requirement of supplier-customer relationships.
• We want to expand our relationship with you and set the preconditions for growing together.
• Regular reporting is part of your contractual obligations.
• With regular reporting, we want to improve our working relationship.

How

• You send us your contractually agreed regular reports.
• We kindly ask you for some additional regular reporting to improve our working relationship.
• We’ll share a public form so that you can drop us your reports.
• We’ll discuss your reports in regular meetings.

Implementation

• We’ll send you the form link soon.
• We’ll invite you to our first regular meetings soon.
• We’ll share more information about our supplier management process soon.
• If you have any questions, feel free to drop us an email.

Follow-up email

Regular meetings initialization meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• We want to structure meetings between our organizations as part of our ongoing efforts to set up a structured supplier management function.
• Regular meetings between our organizations are, like regular reports, an element of supplier management activities.
• Meetings are an important way to address and discuss issues and problems, elaborate on improvements, and develop innovations together.

How

• We plan to conduct different types of meetings with different aims.
• We align a regular weekday and time for the weekly meeting, and all other meeting types are invited manually.
• We’ll conduct internal escalation meetings with our superior managers if the outcomes of our meetings together aren’t satisfying.
• We’ll share more details about the meeting types, incl. example questions, as part of a further operational alignment.
• The regular reports are partly independent of these meetings: you provide the aligned reports, and we may discuss some of the contents as part of our meetings.

Meeting types

• The weekly operations meeting serves as a regular interaction to address open issues and current incidents.
• The monthly reporting meeting serves as a possibility to discuss your regular reporting contents and the impacts on our business.
• The monthly open issues meeting serves as a “problem”-solving meeting to discuss (still) open issues, incidents, and problems.
• The quarterly improvement meeting serves as a room for brainstorming how you can improve your delivery performance, how we can improve our contribution, and how we can improve working together.
• The yearly innovation meeting serves as a brainstorming opportunity about what other services could be useful for our organization.

Follow-up email

Weekly operations meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Challenge of the week

• What’s the challenge of the week?
• How did it occur?
• Why did it occur?

Current status

• What has the supplier done to solve the challenge?
• What’s the current status of solving it?
• Why is it still unsolved?

Further actions

• What will the supplier do to solve it?
• When does the supplier expect to solve it?
• How do we prevent similar challenges in the future?

Follow-up email

Monthly reporting meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Our questions about your report

• What have you improved in the last month?
• Why aren’t you performing in some areas?
• What will you do better next month?

Your approach to improving your service

• How will you improve your service performance?
• When will we see the improvement?
• What happens if the service doesn’t improve?

Our support for your improvement

• What can we do to help you to improve your service performance?
• What should we stop doing to help you to improve your service performance?
• What information do you need to improve your service performance?

Follow-up email

Monthly open issues meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Open issues

• What are the open issues from the past month?
• Why aren’t they solved?
• How can we help you to solve them?

Delay investigation

• Why is the resolution of these open issues delayed?
• What impact does this have on the customer organization?
• How do we avoid similar delays in the future?

Customer contribution

• How can the customer prevent similar delays in the future?
• How can the customer support the supplier to solve similar delays faster in the future?
• How can other stakeholders and organizations contribute to a better service delivery performance?

Follow-up email

Quarterly improvement meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Where to improve

• What area needs improvement?
• Why does this area need improvement?
• What are some other less important areas of improvement?

How to improve

• What do we want to change?
• How do we change it?
• How do we test the change?
• How do we ensure the change works?
• How do we ensure that the change will work in the long term?

Expected outcomes

• What are the expected technical outcomes?
• What impact do we expect on other systems?
• What other systems do we have to change?

Business outcomes

• What business outcomes do we expect?
• What impact will this have on our organization?
• What impact will this have on our customer solutions?

Supplier outcomes

• What outcomes do we expect for the supplier?
• How will the supplier use this improvement for other customers?
• What are the financial gains of using this improvement for other customers?

Follow-up email

Yearly innovation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why innovate

• Why do we need innovations for our organization?
• Why do we have challenges developing innovations for our organization?
• Why do we need to innovate together?

Where to innovate

• What are the current pain points we would like to solve?
• What areas of our organization need to innovate?
• What are the current external pressures on our organization?

How to innovate

• How does our organization develop innovations?
• How do we develop organizations together?
• How can we develop innovations faster than usual together?

How to test innovations

• How do we test our innovation?
• Who are the stakeholders we must include?
• What are the interests of our stakeholders?

How to implement innovations

• How do we increase the speed of implementing the innovation?
• How do we speed up the commercial process?
• How do we ensure user and stakeholder adoption of the innovation?

How to start

• What are the first steps to start?
• How can we reduce the initial amount of work for both sides?
• Who do we have to pitch potential innovations to?

Follow-up email

Weekly operations escalation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Challenge

• What’s the challenge?
• How did it occur?
• Why did it occur?

Escalation

• Why isn’t the current approach enough?
• Why do higher management have to talk to each other?
• What does higher management have to clarify?

Urgency

• Why can’t we wait another week?
• Why do higher management have to talk as soon as possible?
• What’s the impact to our business if higher management wouldn’t talk to each other soon?

Change

• What has to change in the future?
• How can we work better together?
• How can we avoid future escalations?

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interview and survey process meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why

• Measurement is one indicator of supplier performance, but it reflects only the agreed(!) KPIs.
• Many legacy contracts don’t have good measurements agreed.
• Some legacy contracts don’t have any measurements agreed at all.
• We want to learn about topics (e.g., relationships) that are hard to measure through technical systems.
• We want to compare our suppliers’ objective performance with the perceived performance.

How

• Interviews with operational teams (e.g., process, product, project).
• Interviews with horizontal teams (e.g., sourcing team, technology innovation team).
• Surveys with all involved stakeholders.

What

• General satisfaction
• Satisfaction with service delivery performance
• Satisfaction with relationship to people
• Satisfaction with personal handling of challenges (e.g., response time to emails)
• Satisfaction with legal & regulatory compliance
• Satisfaction with continual improvement efforts
• Satisfaction with innovation capability
• Own ideas, improvements, and innovations for working with suppliers

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interviews preparation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Goal

• Stakeholder interviews give the supplier management team detailed insights about the state of supplier relationships and performance.
• Stakeholder interviews show detailed opinions and improvement possibilities.
• Stakeholder interviews are part of the preparation of stakeholder surveys by identifying focus topic areas.
• Stakeholder interviews gain more detailed information because the hurdle of answering multiple emails is eliminated.

Format

• Around five stakeholder interviews per supplier or contract.
• Useful cut between supplier and contract landscape.
• One hour per interview.
• One hour follow-up for creating written notes.

Questions

1. What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?
2. What does work well with this supplier/contract?
3. What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?
4. How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?
5. How can this supplier / contract team improve its work with our organization?
6. What innovations can we develop with this supplier / contract team?

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interview meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Question 1

• What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?

Question 2

• What works well with this supplier/contract?

Question 3

• What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?

Question 4

• How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?

Question 5

• How can this supplier/contract team improve its work with our organization?

Question 6

• What innovations can we develop with this supplier/contract team?

Follow-up email

Stakeholder survey meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

WHY will we conduct an employee survey?

• We’ll briefly introduce and explain the supplier management function.
• We’ll receive feedback about our supplier relationships from many employees.
• We’ll receive feedback in a systematized, standardized, and automated way.
• We’re always open to feedback through other channels than this survey.
• We practice participatory decision-making with this survey.

HOW will we conduct an employee survey?

• We’ll define the to-be-invited group instead of creating a list of names.
• We’ll invite participants via email and will remind them with additional emails.
• We’ll give invitees at least two weeks to participate in the survey.

• We’ll use a software tool that is already implemented, if available.
• Alternatively, we’ll use an external cloud software tool and provide clear data protection information for the invitees.
• We’re open to survey software tool ideas.

• We aim to formalize the survey to make it somewhat statistically useful.
• We aim to evaluate the closed survey in the following two weeks.
• We’ll share the survey results with the stakeholders first, then with all employees.

WHAT questions will the employee survey include?

• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s people to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s service delivery performance to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s client relationship management (e.g., email response times, meeting preparation) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s legal & regulatory compliance (e.g., with laws, certifications) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s continual improvement capability (e.g., improving processes after challenges were discussed) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s innovation capability (e.g., developing new services) to a colleague?

• What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?
• What works well with this supplier/contract?
• What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?
• How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?
• How can this supplier/contract team improve its work with our organization?
• What innovations can we develop with this supplier/contract team?

Slide: Survey invitation text

Follow-up email

Stakeholder interviews and survey results meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Slide: Interview results

• Supplier relationships have lots of potential for improvement.
• Performance is seen as widely different depending on supplier and contract.
• Interviews and surveys are seen as a good idea, and as complementary supplier management instruments.
• More detailed interaction with suppliers/contracts and their specific issues is necessary.

Slide: Survey data

• 56 survey participants
• 42 completed surveys
• 15 questions answered on average
• 10,000 words written
• 3 additional feedback emails received

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s people to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s service delivery performance to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s client relationship management (e.g., email response times, meeting preparation) to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s legal & regulatory compliance (e.g., with laws, certifications) to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s continual improvement capability (e.g., improving processes after challenges were discussed) to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s innovation capability (e.g., developing new services) to a colleague?

• TBD...

Question: What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?

• It works, but there is lots of room for improvement.
• It needs more attention from our side.
• Systematic supplier management is still underdeveloped.

Question: What works well with this supplier/contract?

• Nearly always answers quickly.
• Quick service changes and improvements.
• Works hard on agreed improvements.

Question: What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?

• Many regular performance issues.
• Creates a chaotic impression.
• No innovative ideas or service options.

Question: How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?

• More processes, procedures, and systems.
• Earlier communication.
• Clear written requirements instead of meetings.

Question: How can this supplier/contract team improve its work with our organization?

• More processes, procedures, and systems.
• More reliable service delivery, incl. service changes.
• Innovations on how to improve our business.

Question: What innovations can we develop with this supplier/contract team?

• New delivery models.
• New technologies.
• New operation and business models.

Follow-up email

Supplier improvement preparation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Background

• We collected a lot of data and created information about our supplier landscape and our internal stakeholders’ satisfaction with it.
• We must communicate the aggregated results as feedback to suppliers.
• Without communicating this internal feedback to the external suppliers, the interviews and the survey would be useless.

How

• We communicate the supplier feedback in separate meetings instead of integrating it into our regular meetings.
• Separate meetings make it clear that this feedback is independent of our regular operations.
• We invite each supplier/contract team to a meeting, including accounts and technical people and relevant stakeholders from our side.

Questions

• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s people to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s service delivery performance to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s client relationship management (e.g., email response times, meeting preparation) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s legal & regulatory compliance (e.g., with laws, certifications) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s continual improvement capability (e.g., improving processes after challenges were discussed) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s innovation capability (e.g., developing new services) to a colleague?

• What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?
• What does work well with this supplier/contract?
• What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?
• How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?
• How can this supplier/contract team improve its work with our organization?
• What innovations can we develop with this supplier/contract team?

Follow-up email

Supplier improvement meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Introduction

• We interviewed and surveyed our internal stakeholders about your work and how our organization works with you.
• We share this feedback to improve our working relationship with your organization and team.
• Our goal is continual improvement rather than finger-pointing.
• We understand that our organization must improve, too.

Feedback

• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s people to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s service delivery performance to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s client relationship management (e.g., email response times, meeting preparation) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s legal & regulatory compliance (e.g., with laws, certifications) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s continual improvement capability (e.g., improving processes after challenges were discussed) to a colleague?
• On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this supplier’s innovation capability (e.g., developing new services) to a colleague?

• What’s your general impression of this supplier/contract?
• What works well with this supplier/contract?
• What doesn’t work well with this supplier/contract?
• How can our organization improve its work with this supplier/contract?
• How can this supplier/contract team improve its work with our organization?
• What innovations can we develop with this supplier/contract team?

Implications

• We’re working quite well together.
• We identified many minor areas of improvement, as well as some significant ones.
• We want to work on a small number of big impact improvements and a small number of so-called low-hanging fruits.
• We’ll bring the discussed points into our regular meetings for further discussion.
• We’re happy to have you as a supplier and are looking forward to improving our working relationship even more.

Follow-up email

Contract requirements meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why contract management?

• Contracts are the foundation of working with external suppliers.
• Contracts include the what and the how of working together.
• Too many details make the contract hard to set up and inflexible in execution.
• A too-general contract doesn’t include the details on how things should work and will require many discussions with the supplier.
• Both sides aim to set up a balanced contract, with legal terms benefitting both sides to the same degree.
• Unbalanced legal terms make one side feel betrayed by the other.
• Contract design, writing, and changes need a lawyer with deep expertise about the contract's subject (e.g., information technology services).

Why standardize contracts?

• Contracts can be good or bad - it’s better if we always use a good one.
• Standardization reduces the number of questions.
• Standardization reduces the number of negotiations.
• Standardization reduces the amount of management.
• Standardization increases the trust of internal stakeholders and external suppliers in our contracts.
• Standardization increases the simplicity and speed of closing contracts.

What are our contract requirements?

• Better content (easier to understand, clearer terms)
• Faster contracting (process)
• Cheaper terms (cost decrease, well-defined SLA)

Follow-up email

Contract templates requirements meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

What are our general contract template requirements?

• Simple structure
• Balanced (buyer & seller)
• Easy to understand
• Easy to use
• Easy to adapt
• Clear guidelines on how to use and adapt
• Broad applicability
• Little need for adaption to different situations
• Single point of contact for support (internal legal team or external lawyer)

How do we create good contract templates?

• Working with a law firm
• Working with template management software
• Working with clear instructions
• Working with a clear process on how to use the templates

How do we ensure the use of our contract templates?

• A single contracting process ensures all contracts are channeled through the sourcing, supplier (contract) management, and legal team.
• A contract and/or document template/design management software keeps track of edits and reviews.
• The commitment of stakeholders to the process and the templates ensures more order in the contract landscape.
• Attention: The migration to common templates can take years due to the duration of the legacy contract landscape.

Follow-up email

Continual contract template improvement meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why should we continually improve our contract templates?

• We have both positive and negative experiences with our contract templates.
• We receive feedback from our suppliers about the contracts that we want to incorporate.
• We want to incorporate new good practices into our contracts.
• We must incorporate changes in the law.

How do we continually improve our contract templates?

• Regular reviews (together with legal team)
• External support (e.g., law firm)
• Monitoring changes in the law
• Monitoring good practices (e.g., articles)
• Reviewing contracts of other organizations
• Internal interviews
• Internal surveys

What’s the process for continually improving our contact templates?

1. Create templates
2. Use templates
3. Collect template feedback
4. Change templates

Follow-up email

Contract expert interviews preparation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why do we conduct expert interviews?

• We need feedback from various experts on designing and improving our contracts.
• We lack the required number of internal contract experts.
• Lawyers have various opinions on legal topics, therefore we need to ask a significant number for qualified feedback.
• We want to base our continual improvement on expert opinions, instead of unqualified internal stakeholders in the legal field.

How will we conduct expert interviews?

• We search, qualify, and contract several legal experts to review our contract templates.
• We contract the legal experts on a limited time & material basis.
• We use a number of qualified legal experts for regular review.
• We include regular contract template reviews in our budget.

• We send the contract templates for review to the legal experts.
• We receive an annotated version back from each legal expert.
• We review the annotations and discuss them internally.

• We set up an interview with each legal expert.
• We collect additional verbal feedback about the contract template.
• We compare the feedback from different legal experts.

What questions will we ask?

• What issues do you have with this contract template?
• How can we improve this contract template?
• How can we modularize contract development?
• How can we systematize contract development?
• How can we standardize contract development?
• How can we automate contract development?

Follow-up email

Contract expert interview meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Question 1

• What issues do you have with this contract template?

Question 2

• How can we improve this contract template?

Question 3

• How can we modularize contract development?

Question 4

• How can we systematize contract development?

Question 5

• How can we standardize contract development?

Question 6

• How can we automate contract development?

Follow-up email

Contract change meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why do we want to change our contract?

• What isn’t working?
• Why can’t we continue without changing our contract?
• What has changed since we’ve closed the contract?
• Why haven’t we seen this when closing the contract?
• How can we prevent future contract changes?
• How can we better anticipate changes in the contract lifecycle when closing contracts together?

How do we want to change our contract?

• What are the concrete contract sections we want to change?
• Who writes the new version?
• What are the risks for the buyer side?
• What are the risks for the supplier side?
• How do we process this contract change through our organizations?

Follow-up email

Legal compliance meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Why must we monitor the legal compliance of our contracts?

• The law changes, and these changes can have an impact on our closed contracts and contract templates.
• The number of legal changes per year is too high for unstructured changes.
• A structured monitoring process makes monitoring legal changes more effective and efficient.

How do we monitor the legal compliance of our contracts?

• We subscribe to a legal information & update service.
• We analyze which changes in the law are relevant for us.
• We analyze which closed contracts and contract templates these changes in the law affect.
• We work with the internal legal team and external lawyers to adapt our closed contracts and contract templates to changes in the law.

How do we receive external support for legal compliance monitoring?

• We hire one or two law firm(s) that receive our closed contracts and contract templates to monitor changes in the law.
• The cooperation should work as a subscription service with a fixed-fee agreement.
• The cooperation includes a standardized process for adapting the contract templates to changes in the law.

Follow-up email

Related functions outlook meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Cooperation with related functions

• We want to cooperate further with related functions to determine business needs and divide tasks between teams.
• We prefer cooperation (separating work between teams) over collaboration (working on the same document).
• We’re open to your suggestions and flexible about dividing the necessary tasks.

Sourcing function

• What sourcing projects do you plan in the next twelve months?
• What procedures do you plan to set up in the next twelve months?
• What other initiatives do you have planned in the next twelve months?

Technology innovation

• What technology innovation projects do you have planned in the next twelve months?
• What procedures do you plan to set up in the next twelve months?
• What other initiatives do you have planned in the next twelve months?

Other

• What other teams are closely related to ours?
• What organization-wide topics will be relevant in the next twelve months?
• What external factors could impact in the next twelve months?

Follow-up email

Continual improvement meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

Areas of improvement

• People: How do we get people to work more on supplier management?
• Process: How do we improve our supplier relationships and their service delivery performance?
• Technology: How do we develop/implement/adopt the new technologies of our suppliers?
• Effectiveness: How do we transfer more good practices from our suppliers to our organization?
• Efficiency: How do we transfer good practices with less effort?
• Sustainability: How do we keep good practices in the organization?
• Improvement & Innovation: How do we adopt improvements and innovations from our suppliers?
• Information & Knowledge: How do we collect, use, and share good practices from our suppliers inside the organization?

Approach to improvement

• Individual feedback
• Interviews
• Surveys
• Team leader feedback
• Sourcing team’s feedback
• Technology innovation team’s feedback

Improvement implementation

• People: Helping people to change habits.
• Process: Adopting processes.
• Technology: Further developing and/or changing our technology landscape.

Follow-up email

Evaluation meeting

Invitation email

Meeting information

What have we achieved so far?

• The supplier management function/process/team is set up.
• The supplier management process is running.
• We gathered our supplier landscape, aligned on regular supplier meetings, and conducted first supplier interviews and surveys.
• The supplier manager answers questions on working with suppliers and improving their service delivery performance.

What can we generally do better?

• Reducing the number of meetings.
• Reducing the amount of stakeholder alignment.
• Reducing time slots of waiting for alignments and decisions.

How can we improve our supplier management?

• More and better KPI measurement - together with sourcing and SLA management function.
• Earlier collaboration with technology innovation and sourcing functions.
• Researching better alternatives to our existing suppliers.
• Working more closely with suppliers to develop real innovations.
• What else?

How do we systematically evaluate our organizational library?

• Feedback
• Interviews
• Surveys

Follow-up email