Supplier Management

Retailers are constantly seeking a competitive edge through their supplier community. Today, suppliers have many strategic distribution options including their own direct-to-consumer channel. Suppliers are more sophisticated in how they assess retailer profitability and where to win. As such, leading retailers recognize the need to form strategic relationships with their suppliers to capture and maintain a lean forward supplier investment level. The following critical questions emerge as retailers formulate a new supplier management approach:

  • How should a retailer measure the complete supplier contribution to their business considering loyalty, exclusive offers, discretionary funding, human talent, shopper insights, tools, ideas, brands, values, etc.?
  • How should a retailer measure their supplier’s alignment with their strategy?
  • Who are today’s strategic suppliers and who will step forward to become tomorrow’s vanguard?
  • What are our retail expectations from our suppliers at different tiers and how shall we scorecard and manage?

TPG’s proprietary supplier segmentation model, supplier scorecard and supplier management processes insure that our retail clients are properly assessing and selecting the optimal partners to support their strategy and future success.

What We Do

TPG’s retail team has the experience and proprietary tools to help our retail clients evaluate, segment and build productive relationships with their diverse suppliers. A partial list of our consulting services includes:

  • Supplier Segmentation Criteria: TPG starts with identification and definition of the critical comparative components that feed the supplier segmentation.
  • Segmentation Model & Analytics: TPG also offers the development and execution of the underlying quantitative and qualitative analysis that will create the foundation of comparison among the suppliers.
  • Supplier Tiers and Strategic Expectations: TPG then works with a retailer to set objectives and expectations for the retailer-supplier relationship, roles and responsibilities for both parties by supplier segment.
  • Suppliers Scorecard Development: TPG will develop and establish set of key metrics and benchmark targets for a new supplier scorecard.  This is designed with a retailer cross-functional team to capture metrics from marketing to merchandising to supply chain. This work also includes a process for the regular review of performance versus expectations between the retailer and supplier. The review process will also include the typical resolution paths needed to address variances to expectations.
  • Supplier Management Protocols: Lastly TPG will facilitate the development of planning approaches and guidelines for data sharing, strategy joint development, systems collaboration, supply chain integration and even product innovation where appropriate.
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