Over the course of the three-day Ivalua NOW 2021 conference, keynote speakers and booth representatives alike shared a wealth of information to help guide procurement leaders in improving their processes.
During the second day of the event, our own Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer, Matt Palackdharry, hosted a fireside chat in which he discussed bringing suppliers closer to home in response to President Biden’s executive order. In case you weren’t able to catch the discussion, you can read about it here!
Why are organizations reshoring suppliers?
From governmental regulations to improving supply chains, there are many reasons companies are considering reshoring. For starters, President Biden’s Made in America Executive Order supports domestic manufacturing as well as the hiring of domestic workers.
Additionally, after the challenges procurement leaders faced by having much of their supply chains offshored before and during the pandemic, organizations are seeing the benefits of reshoring and working to bring suppliers closer to home.
According to a survey done by TealBook and Wakefield Research, although many businesses saw cost savings in having supply chains offshored, 96% of respondents agreed that having the agility that comes from having onshore suppliers is more important to their bottom line in the long run.
How can companies reshore suppliers?
Before an organization is able to bring their suppliers closer to home, they need to have a strong data foundation and access to information to find those onshore suppliers. A startling 82% of procurement leaders discovered that their supplier data was less than completely adequate during the pandemic. So how do companies address this?
Start with Supplier Data
As Matt mentioned during the discussion, if you don’t know who you can do business with, you can’t do anything good with the information. Take a look at the data you have access to and work to improve it so you can achieve better supplier discovery.
Evaluate Spend Categories
Examine where you’re spending your money: the types of suppliers you’re working with, where most of your budget is going, etc. From there, you can determine if that’s serving your business well and what other suppliers you could be working with.
Identify Similar Suppliers
By finding suppliers that offer similar products and qualifications, you can create innovation and competition within your supply chain, helping lower your spend.
Learn how to reshore your suppliers.
Expanding your supplier base brings opportunities for innovation, diversity, and agility to protect against future disruptions, and the way to achieve all of this is to bring your suppliers home.
We are proud to have partnered with Ivalua on May 12th, 2021 to engage procurement professionals in a timely discussion about how we can help you bring your suppliers closer to home.
