COVID-19 has upset the landscape of commercial sourcing and vendor management. As entire countries imposed virus control restrictions, businesses were forced to shift vendors, often with very little warning. In the aftermath, smart companies are using their vendor management software to analyze every aspect of their supply chain and adapt it to respond to future threats.
Here is what they are doing.
Being Realistic
The pandemic has changed how we make, transport to market and sell products, probably for good, or at least if the virus remains a worldwide threat.
Smart businesses have accepted these changes might be permanent. They have initiated reviews to find ways to be better prepared, capitalize on opportunities and develop more resilient business models.
Reassessing Risk
The most basic analysis businesses are performing form a sourcing perspective relates to what strategies they need to implement to maintain the free flow of products. They are also assessing online threats and identifying needed security measures. Finally, they are developing contingencies for if another period of restrictions is imposed.
Consolidation of Sources
Another step many companies that rely heavily on supply chains are doing is consolidating vendor sources. That way, if the management chain is disrupted, vendor contacts are readily available. Consolidation also ensures that everyone in a business can access needed vendors if a country imposes restrictions on the country of any particular vendor.
Reviewing Vendor Security
A business might have the best cyber security around, but if a vendor that has online access to their vendor management software does not, that business is in danger. To address that, businesses are looking at the security of everyone they are linked to online and making sure that either those companies tighten security or that firewalls are in place to handle breaches.
Evaluating Vendor Agreements
Pandemic restrictions have greatly and negatively affected supply chains. That has led to inevitable delivery issues. How they are addressed contractually has been revealed to be lacking. Those responsible for vendor management are now using their contract software to update agreements, incorporating measures to protect themselves should another disruption occur.
Altering Operations
The pandemic restrictions caused many companies to alter their way of doing business. That the virus will be with us a while has pushed those temporary measures into the realm of semi-permanent or permanent. That has required companies to modify their standard operating procedures as well as the way they address customers.
With all the analysis, vendor management software has played a vital role. Without it, the ability of a company to quickly assess, adapt, update and operate would be profoundly negatively affected.
