consulting & Solutions

Supplier Relationship Management

Managing relationships with suppliers is an essential component of obtaining a long-lasting supply advantage. Many companies have a rudimentary supplier relationship management (SRM) process in place, but often lack focus and clear strategy. As a result, SRM ends up as another way of trying to further squeeze supplier margin in a confrontational win-lose approach. Because leading organizations set up a clear value agenda in a win-win, collaborative framework (with suppliers and internal business partners), they manage to unleash the full energy of their supply partners to drive broader business objectives in cost and beyond.

Supplier Relationship Management shows concrete ways to increase procurement power.

Supplier-Driven Innovation

With procurement increasingly contributing value beyond cost, the function is serving to link innovation-focused suppliers with the business in general. The earlier suppliers can be brought into the product and service development process, the more quickly new offerings can be launched. A relentless focus on execution and the establishment of long-term relationships to get the best possible supplier innovations are vital.

Exploiting the supply base’s innovation capability through a systematic innovation management process helps create products and services with shorter time to market, lower execution risk, higher quality, and ultimately, more profitable commercialization. Finding which suppliers to involve requires a formal, wide-ranging scanning process. Open-mindedness is also essential; companies have enjoyed significant successes by partnering with nontraditional suppliers, often from noncompeting industries, that bring new “outside-the-box” ideas. Increasingly, companies are heavily weighing innovation capability in their supplier evaluation process.

While suppliers are not the sole source of external innovation, they are consistently cited as essential contributors to idea generation, product and process development, and implementation and launch. Sources such as customers, academics, and market research are more typically involved in ideation activities.

Risk Mitigation Control & Management

Managing supply risk is an integral part of achieving excellence in procurement. We help corporate leaders mitigate risk in a number of ways: 

Developing strategies that ensure supply continuity, creating contingency plans, aligning supply security with overall business risk, and measuring and tracking KPIs.

Our comprehensive approach to risk management helps you tackle several key areas. We help you define the potential risks and your objectives, and understand the current supply chain dynamics. We deploy category strategies that shift the supply-demand balance in key categories, define smart contracting strategies, and help you employ financial hedging where necessary. Lastly, we help you create the processes and organization needed to manage risk over the long term.

II:Category Management Excellence

True Category Strategy Excellence Can Help Enhance Innovativeness And Flexibility On Cost Saving and Value Creation

Using the latest in advanced scenario planning, leading-edge analytical tools, and comprehensive supply management approaches, leading organizations deliver double the financial benefits across spend categories and inform the business strategies of their company.

Most companies today use basic sourcing techniques to keep their external spend in check—in many cases issuing RFQs or conducting reverse auctions for major direct and indirect spend categories. Bolder organizations assemble cross-functional teams to creatively impact supply and demand power across their external spend, for example, by changing the nature of demand, seeking joint advantage with suppliers, or playing them off against one another. Few go another step further to develop deep analytic capabilities that give them genuine expertise in specific domains.

Hay Think’s approach ensures companies achieve lasting advantage in their supply chain in several key ways, including (but not limited to):

Defining category cost structures through advanced cost modeling, tear-down analysis, parametric bidding

Identifying the underlying cost drivers at the macro level (such as supply-demand balances) and micro level (including specification proliferation)

Unlocking the full-potential value road map through the deployment of collaborative optimization tools and engaging in comprehensive scenario planning

Using advanced analytics to develop long-term sourcing strategies for selected categories

Rigorous execution through a stage-gate sourcing process with involvement of key functional and business stakeholders, coupled with a razor-sharp focus on implementation, will ensure benefits are captured quickly and minimize erosion of benefits post-sourcing.

Category Strategy Excellence Is A Powerful Tool That Should Be At The Core Of The Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Management.

Spend Analysis and Advanced Category Analytics

Most leaders understand that applying analytics to business strategies is key to maintaining a competitive edge. Advanced analytic methods can be the differentiating factor for an organization by providing accurate visibility into how to optimize key processes. 

By analyzing spend data, we can identify areas of improvement and support your commitment to deliver services smarter, faster and at reduced cost. Our spend analysis process offers customized business analysis using tools and highly skilled technical consultants, not standardized, off-the-shelf solutions. It is the first critical component of procurement transformation, as it enables you to implement changes that give you the best value in procuring goods and services. 

Strategic Sourcing

What you can sell to your customers and how much you can charge depends on how well you buy your inputs or manage your inventory, and how well you produce a product or service. In a more competitive world, strategic sourcing and supply management can determine the size of your potential market and your ability to maintain or improve your margins. They are not just about lowering costs, but also about how your suppliers can help you mitigate potential disruptions.

Hay Think invented strategic sourcing and is at the forefront of pushing it forward and developing advanced methodologies that help you stay ahead of the competition. Our global team of supply management experts helps companies deliver top- and-bottom-line value. We have extensive global reach in supply management and can staff a project with an experienced team, bringing deep expertise in all spend categories relevant at the global, regional, and local levels.

We have developed and applied advanced analytical tools and approaches that enable clients to unlock value in complex and difficult-to-reach areas—including value chain unbundling, total cost of ownership, parametric modeling, expressive bidding, and collaborative optimization. These strategies are codified in the 60+ Purchasing Strategies and tools. Combining these tools and methodologies with deep category expertise, we develop innovative approaches that give you freedom and unlock new sources of value to give our clients a game-changing competitive edge.