SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Preface

It is quite unusual to find white space on the map of a field as thoroughly researched as procurement. Therefore, it took us some time to understand how enormous the white space of supplier relationship management, or SRM, actually is. Indeed, the reader may well even question this assertion, given that SRM is hardly a new term. It has been talked and written about for decades and it has been applied in many ways. Sometimes it is even taken as synonymous for procurement itself. The closer we looked at SRM though, the bigger our fascination with the subject became. Just consider the careless use of the word partner. What exactly qualifies a supplier as a partner? Is a supplier that consumes a large share of a company’s budget and provides ...