Head of Finance Solutions
SME supplier management strategies are the repeatable practices that keep vendor relationships under control: approve vendors formally, keep one central record per vendor, and track price and quality over time so you negotiate from evidence, not memory.
The cheapest control in procurement is a formal approval step. Before a vendor can receive purchase orders, capture their contacts, banking details, tax information, and payment terms. This stops duplicate vendors, rogue suppliers, and fraudulent bank details.
When a vendor's details live in one place, finance always pays the right account and procurement always uses the right contact. Central records also let you see every purchase order, receipt, and invoice against a vendor over time.
Reliability is a number, not a feeling. Track on-time delivery, quality rejects, and price movement per vendor. When renegotiation comes, you negotiate from six months of data instead of one bad week.
Concentrate too much spend with one vendor and a single failure stops your business. Track spend per vendor, and review any supplier that represents more than 30-40% of a critical category.
Formal vendor approval, one central record per vendor, and data-driven performance tracking across price, quality, and delivery.
Track on-time delivery rate, quality rejects, and price changes per vendor, reviewed monthly and used at renegotiation.
At least two qualified suppliers for critical products to avoid single-point failure, while consolidating the rest for better pricing.
Contacts, banking and tax details, payment terms, product catalogue, and delivery lead times.
Keep one approved vendor record per supplier with unique banking details, and flag duplicates at onboarding.
