New disruptions might push supply chains to their breaking point without immediate foundational improvements
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare widespread problems with supplier information on a global scale. While many procurement leaders had initially vowed to invest in supply chain resiliency, almost a year later, procurement leaders are still grappling with a cascade of issues surrounding poor supplier information. In fact, the 2021 Supplier Information Study, commissioned by supplier intelligence platform, Tealbook, revealed that 72% of procurement leaders are very concerned that their supplier intelligence has still not improved to crisis-proof supply chains.
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“COVID-19 was a wake-up call to organizations around the world. Without a solid data foundation in place, the next big disruption could be even more disastrous for supply chains,” said Stephany Lapierre, CEO of Tealbook. “Access to up-to-date supplier data will afford companies the agility necessary to weather future disruptions, but also to make the most of supplier innovations in a rapidly evolving landscape.”
The survey confirmed that agility was of utmost importance to procurement organizations, with 96% of procurement professionals saying that agility is even more important than cost savings for their companies’ bottom line. However, at a time when organizations need the ability to pivot and respond to disruptions, 57% of procurement leaders reported that they are still relying on antiquated, manual data entry; compounding the time and resources to update supplier information. Leaders also cited secondary concerns about their lack of a data foundation, including missing out on innovation (30%), falling behind the competition (25%) and not being able to determine ROI (22%). This inability to be agile is compounded by the cost of adding a single supplier record, which procurement leaders estimated to be $2431. Perhaps most alarmingly, a third of procurement leaders (33%) admit they have no way of knowing how much a supplier record costs.
In short, there are a staggering number of critical issues that organizations are facing as a result of inadequate supplier data. Not only did 41% of procurement leaders find their supplier data inadequate during the COVID-19 pandemic, a concerning 26% found it mostly or completely inadequate, reflecting a data foundation that’s nowhere near strong enough to stand up to current or future supply chain disruptions.
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