"We spent several months analyzing available technologies. Iasta provides a great value with its optimization-based sourcing features as well as its global support services. The software enhances our analysis capabilities, enabling us to consider multiple supply chain scenarios in dramatically compressed time frames. For supply chain management, the tools and services are invaluable."
Improve Supplier Performance: Iasta Supplier Performance Management Wiki Paper
Manufacturing companies have been using supplier scorecards to measure basic supplier performance
metrics for a long time. In the past decade, however, both manufacturing and service firms have become
increasingly aware of the importance of supplier performance and its critical impact on their own
performance and market competitiveness. The increasing reliance on outside suppliers has transformed
both the perception of and the need for understanding and improving supplier performance from just a
vitamin to a real painkiller. A number of factors have converged to create the perfect storm
in the supplier performance world:
Increased outsourcing and reliance on suppliers for both goods and services
Globalization of business and of supply chains
Increasing complexity in managing suppliers
Increasing supply risks
Viewing suppliers not just as a cost, but as a as a strategic input to their bottom line
Good supplier performance is a key ingredient in enabling firms to achieve business performance excellence.
But how can firms manage or even influence the performance of outside suppliers? Supplier performance
management (SPM) is being widely adopted as a method to understand and improve the performance of the
extended enterprise. This article discusses best practices for implementing supplier performance
management from creating an effective process to developing meaningful supplier performance
metrics to achieving successful results.
