Supply chain management can be especially difficult when you have a large supplier base and especially with those that are not classified as key suppliers.  

With increasing numbers of organisations going out of business, steps need to be taken to reduce any risk to your supply chain. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently issued this warning at a CIPS Central London event that purchasers should be on the look out for struggling vendors. 

The key is to spot a troubled supplier before real problems begin. This can easily be managed within the functionality of your Purchase-to-Pay system by tracking performance, payments, deliverables and discount requests. This should be standard practice in order to monitor SLA’s and contract terms, and again this functionality should be available from your purchasing system.   

In the worst-case-scenario if suppliers do send out the warning signs, always have a supply contingency in place for such eventualities; don’t run the risk of a supplier failure having a direct impact on your organisation’s commercial success.