How Marketers can Build Positive Relationships with Suppliers

How Marketers can Build Positive Relationships with Suppliers

James Diaz
Procurement and Sourcing Hub
3 min readDec 12, 2019

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Modern-day businesses try every measure to stand apart from their competitors. They adopt innovative strategies to cater to the needs of customers more efficiently. If you are a marketer, you need to build positive relationships with suppliers. This is beneficial from the long-term perspective. It will also enhance your organization’s supply chain at large. The ways by which marketers can build positive relationships with suppliers are namely, consistent communication, leveraging technology, understanding contractual obligations, and monitoring deliverables regularly. Supplier development freelancers also promote the relationship between marketers and suppliers.

Tips to Enhance Supplier Relationships

You need to follow the below-mentioned tips for building positive relationships with your suppliers:

Clear, consistent communication

Clear and consistent communication is the base in business relationships. Being a buyer, you need to communicate with suppliers on the grounds of equal partnership. It is better not to go with aggressive negotiation tactics. In this case, you are very likely to lose the trust of suppliers.

Leverage technology for mutual benefits

You can go with a technology platform that enhances efficiency and transparency in absolute terms. A vendor self-service portal is an appropriate example of this. It will help the vendors to assess purchase orders, update contact information, submit requests, and answer promptly to requests for quotes. In this way, you can generate transparency in your supplier relationships.

Understand contractual obligations

More often, suppliers fail to understand contractual obligations. You should set a specific quality standard for your suppliers. You need to promise suppliers that they should be paid in a timely fashion for the goods they offer. Both marketers and suppliers understand the obligations in a positive contract relationship. You get a chance to utilize your vendor contracts and thereby, stating the terms and conditions of your purchase relationship. The supplier auditors guarantee suppliers’ compliance with an organization’s quality management system. This ensures transparency in business operations.

Scrutinize deliverables and performance regularly

Marketers should review the performance of suppliers regularly. It facilitates vendor accountability in absolute terms. Being a marketer, you can also reap the benefits of reduced costs while improving customer satisfaction. This is indeed an added advantage for marketers. Do not take the assessment process as a measurement of metrics but beyond that. The supplier development freelancers also help marketers to get in touch with the right suppliers. If you give your vendors regular feedback, they can deliver performance above your expectations.

Be an organization that other firms like to partner with

Research studies highlight the fact that organizations with positive supplier relationships tend to outperform their competitors. You can double your company’s growth owing to positive supplier relationships. Suppliers would prefer to do business with organizations that operate ethically and communicate clearly. Marketers should adhere to the contracts while giving vendors the advantage with efficiency-promoting tools.

Building positive relationships with suppliers is crucial for an organization’s growth. The supplier auditors resolve audit-related scars within a short period to the convenience of organizations. Try to conform to the above-mentioned steps if you want to develop positive relationships with suppliers.

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