Best tools for stakeholder & supplier management

Need to know the best tools for stakeholder and supplier relationship management? There are so many out there. In this article we explain the difference between stakeholder and supplier relationship management technologies, and describe what to consider when choosing a solution for managing your complex business relationships.

What are Stakeholder Relationship Management tools?

Given your stakeholders may make represent all of these six groups, a Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) tool might can help you facilitate communication, collaboration, and relationship-building with various stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, employees, investors and community members.

First identify your stakeholders

Before you decide on which relationship management tool will suit you best, it’s important to understand the important role that suppliers can have for an enterprise business. Creating positive relationships with a range of stakeholders; not just customers, is really important. Effectively managing and coordinating supplier and B2B services can help you to build and grow your business, and have access to opportunities you might have otherwise missed out on.

The six markets model defines six key markets which go beyond just the traditional customer base. When you’re in business, you need to do more than just connect with your customers. There are all types of relationships to create and maintain through marketing and engagement activities. Consider:

• Marketing to customers: the main focus of traditional marketing
• Marketing internally: Employees working together to respond to your goals mission and strategy, acting as marketing agents regardless of their role
• Marketing to potential employees: to attract the best people for positions
• Marketing via referral: customers become ambassadors and advocates for your brand through word of mouth marketing
• Marketing to suppliers: establishing stakeholder relationships is an important part of your marketing approach
• Influence marketing: engagement with regulators, industry, environment or charity groups and agencies

SRM tools are designed to help you manage and engage with their stakeholders effectively. Key features of SRM tools include:

• Stakeholder identification and mapping: to enable you to identify and categorise stakeholders based on their influence, interests, and impact on the business.
• Communication management: to help you deliver consistent and targeted communication with stakeholders, ensuring that the right messages reach the right audiences.
• Engagement tools: that can be used to set up surveys, polls or other feedback channels to enable stakeholders to provide feedback and comment.
• Engagement tracking: to track interactions and engagement levels with stakeholders, facilitating better relationship management.
• Performance metrics: that can deliver reporting and data related to the effectiveness of stakeholder engagement strategies.

 

 

What are Supplier Relationship Management tools?

Supplier Relationship Management tools are software solutions designed to help you specifically manage your interactions and relationships with suppliers. Supplier Relationship Management may also be abbreviated to SRM but in this article we will use this title in full to avoid confusion. These tools facilitate various aspects of supplier management, including:

• Supplier selection and evaluation: to enable you to assess and score potential suppliers based on criteria like cost, quality, reliability, and compliance with standards.
• Performance monitoring: to track supplier performance through metrics and KPIs, allowing you to see how well your suppliers are performing against agreed objectives or obligations
• Communication: providing accessible channels through which to communicate with suppliers, which can reduce delays and help you respond quickly to any problems or issues
• Risk management: this feature will help you with identifying and managing risks associated with suppliers, such as financial instability, compliance issues, or supply chain disruptions
• Contract management: for maintaining and reviewing contracts, helping you manage contracts and agreements with suppliers in effective way
• Spend analysis: to identify opportunities for cost savings and more strategic procurement decisions.
• Supplier development: supporting initiatives aimed at improving supplier capabilities and performance through training, mentoring, or collaboration on innovation.

What is the difference between stakeholder and supplier relationship management tools?

The key differences between SRMs and Supplier Relationship Management tools lie in their focus, functionality and the types of relationships they manage.

While both types of tools aim to strengthen relationships and improve organisational performance, supplier management tools are specifically tailored for managing suppliers, whereas stakeholder management tools encompass a wider array of relationships across different stakeholder groups.

By definition, stakeholders can represent a variety of different individuals, other businesses or organisations that you interact with.

Your suppliers are those businesses that supply you with the goods or services you need to run your own enterprise. Supplier management tools focus on procurement, performance monitoring, and collaboration with vendors who provide goods or services to the organisation.

These tools have a broader scope, managing relationships, communications, engagement and even marketing activities with various types of stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors and community members. They focus on engagement, communication and risk management across different stakeholder groups.

These differing user groups mean that the two types of tools are likely to have different objectives and functionality. Supplier Management Tools are heavily focused on optimising procurement processes and supplier performance and may carry out activities like supplier evaluation and selection, performance tracking, contract management, and spend analysis. Meanwhile, SMTs help you get a clearer picture of the perspectives, activities and engagement of your diverse groups of stakeholders (including customers).

Information differences in stakeholder and supplier relationship management tools

The types of information these systems will generate will also differ. While both types of tools can help you create an efficient and cohesive business, stakeholder management tools have a broader focus while supplier management tools focus on just the contacts required for business administration.

Reports generated in Supplier Relationship Management tools typically focus on supplier performance, such as delivery times, quality scores, compliance and cost savings. SRMs, on the other hand, generate data related to stakeholder engagement levels across the board, satisfaction ratings, and feedback analysis, aiming to measure the quality of interactions and overall relationship health.

The communication activities conducted in Supplier Relationship Management tools are often transactional, centred around procurement needs, negotiations, and performance discussions, while communication in SRMs are more relational, aimed at fostering engagement, gathering feedback, and ensuring that stakeholders feel heard and valued.

What are the best tools for supplier and stakeholder management tools?

Popular Supplier Relationship Management tools include SAP Ariba, Oracle Procurement Cloud, Jaggaer, and Icertis among others. They help organisations streamline their procurement processes and build stronger, more efficient partnerships with suppliers

Popular SRM tools include Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Monday.com, and Asana among others. These tools help organisations foster stronger relationships with stakeholders, enhance collaboration, and improve overall satisfaction and outcomes.

How to share data in B2B

Many enterprise businesses are looking for a tool that enables them to collaborate on activities and tasks with suppliers, contactors, agencies and advisors. Options for sharing data in a B2B environment include:

• Application Programming Interfaces (APIs): which enable different systems to communicate with each other by allowing data to be sent and received in real-time. B2B companies often use RESTful or SOAP APIs to facilitate data exchange between their applications and those of their partners.
• Data Integration Platforms: such as MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, or Talend, help integrate and synchronise data across different systems and applications. They enable businesses to build connections between their internal systems and their partners' systems for seamless data sharing.
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): these tools offer consistent communication methods that allows businesses to exchange documents (like purchase orders and invoices) electronically in a structured format. It replaces paper-based processes and enhances transaction efficiency.
• Cloud-Based Collaboration Tools: platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and other cloud-based services allow businesses to share documents and collaborate in real time. Partner companies can access shared folders or files, making data sharing easy and organised. 5.
• File Transfer Protocols (FTP/SFTP): these protocols allow businesses to send and receive files securely over the internet. SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) ensures encryption during transmission, making it a safer choice for sensitive data transfers.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems: these systems like Salesforce or HubSpot can facilitate data sharing between organisations, especially in collaborative sales and marketing efforts, by integrating various tools and sharing customer insights.
• Data lakes and warehouses: through which businesses set up shared data lakes or warehouses to aggregate and store large volumes of data from multiple sources, allowing partners to access and analyse shared data.
• Secure directories and portals: using these technologies to create secure portals or directories allows businesses to control access to specific datasets. Partners can log in to view or download the information they need while ensuring data privacy and security.

Pimcore’s data sharing capabilities

Pimcore is a highly efficient software solution that can perform the work of many types of tools Pimcore has components for managing Customer Relationship Management and B2B activity.

With Pimcore Digital Asset Management (DAM), external designers can collaborate in real-time. This capability means that you can work together on projects and, share resources. Asset version control makes it easy to identify what changes have been made by whom, and when.

Pimcore also has innovative way of managing risk associated with external parties accessing your data records and files. Pimcore can also be integrated with other tools to consolidate stakeholder-related data and provide a comprehensive view of relationships. As Pimcore Silver Partners, contact us to discuss how Pimcore can help you handle your stakeholder requirements, and provide access to your files to other users in an effective way.

 

 

 

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Related questions

Who needs supplier relationship management?

Enterprise businesses with a large supplier network and complex supply chain activities can benefit from a supplier relationship management tool. These tools are primarily used by the employees and teams that handled procurement, supply chain management, and finance teams. Meanwhile, SRM tools are used by a broader range of departments, including marketing, public relations, human resources and community engagement teams.