🔍 2025 Product Guide: Vendor Relationship and Sourcing Strategy
Vendor performance directly impacts material flow, cost control, and customer satisfaction. Here’s how to approach your 2025 vendor sourcing strategy using your ERP tools.
- Evaluate Vendor Performance
Use ERP data to measure:
On-time delivery %
Lead time consistency
Fill rate accuracy
Returns or defect rate
Use dashboards to create vendor scorecards for easy comparisons.
- Segment Vendors by Product Category
Group vendors by material (steel, insulation, concrete, etc.) so you can see how diversified or dependent your sourcing strategy is.
- Build Redundancy into Critical SKUs
Don’t rely on a single supplier for fast-moving or critical items like OSB or drywall. Use your ERP to tag approved secondary suppliers.
- Track Pricing Trends
Record and chart historical pricing for key materials across vendors. This helps you negotiate better contracts and spot pricing spikes.
- Automate Reorder Workflows
Use minimum/maximum inventory rules in your ERP to auto-generate POs to your top vendors—saving time and preventing delays.
- Build Digital Vendor Portals
Give vendors access to shared ERP modules to view POs, delivery schedules, or submit shipment confirmations directly.
Vendor relationships are long-term partnerships—make them data-driven. Want help setting up a smarter sourcing system? Reach out and we’ll show you how.
