Supplier Relationship Management Software
Features, Benefits, Costs
ScienceSoft applies 10-year experience in building supply chain management software and practical knowledge of 30+ industries to help companies implement effective SRM solutions.
SRM Software: The Essence
Supplier relationship management (SRM) software implementation powers companies with a comprehensive set of automated analytical and tracking tools that help streamline supplier selection and onboarding, supplier performance monitoring and assessment, and other important supplier-related processes.
SRM solutions centralize supplier-related data, eliminate manual efforts across supplier pre-qualification and scoring, support contract and procurement management, and provide a supplier portal for facilitated communication with multi-tier suppliers.
When integrated with HR management software, SRM software can cover the functionality of a vendor management system for staffing needs to help businesses that rely on external workforce streamline hiring processes and management of relationships with contingent workers, service contractors, and freelancers.
Key Features of an SRM System
ScienceSoft creates SRM software with unique functionality closely bound to our clients’ objectives. Here, we share a set of features commonly requested by our customers:
Implementation of SRM Software with ScienceSoft
In supply chain management software development since 2012, ScienceSoft helps companies build reliable and cost-effective SRM solutions to make better sourcing and purchasing decisions, mitigate supplier performance and compliance risks and streamline communication with suppliers.
Selected SRM projects by ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft’s services
SRM software consulting
- Analysis of your supplier relationship management needs.
- Assessment of the existing SRM processes, tools and their integration points (if any).
- Suggesting optimal features, tech stack and architecture for the SRM solution.
- Preparing an integration plan with ERP, WMS, inventory software, etc.
- Implementation cost & time estimates, expected ROI calculation.
SRM software implementation
- SRM needs analysis.
- SRM solution conceptualization.
- Architecture design for a SRM system.
- SRM software development.
- Integrating the solution with other business-critical systems (ERP, WMS, inventory software, etc.).
- Quality assurance.
- User training.
- SRM software maintenance and adaptation.
- Continuous support and evolution (if required).
Important Integrations for SRM Software
ScienceSoft recommends integrating SRM software with relevant corporate solutions to build a resilient supply chain and eliminate double data entry across disparate systems. Essential integrations include:
- SRM software + ERP: to transfer accurate supplier data and analytics (on supplier performance and risks) from SRM to ERP to leverage it at all levels of enterprise planning (operational and business planning).
- SRM software + intranet: to collaborate with business departments on supplier selection and procurement activities (e.g., other departments can submit their specific sourcing requirements and participate in the supplier approval process).
- SRM software + warehouse management software (WMS): to transfer notifications on received supplies (with the results of their quality inspection) from WMS to the involved users in SRM.
- SRM software + inventory management software: to transfer data on inventory levels from inventory management software to SRM for timely procurement.
Factors That Determine SRM Software Success
In SRM projects, ScienceSoft always seeks to cover the following important factors that may bring the customer additional value across SRM processes:
High level of automation
across daily routines of employees engaged in sourcing & procurement activities to increase their productivity and free them up for high-value, strategic SRM tasks.
High visibility into all levels of SRM processes
from supplier onboarding and pre-qualification to strategic sourcing and purchasing activities.
Advanced supplier performance analytics
to accurately assess supplier risks and enable informed SRM-related decisions based on AI recommendations, e.g., on optimal bid evaluation criteria or optimal supplier selection scenarios.
Powerful search engine
to quickly find supplier information and supplier performance stats on a particular supplier, business unit or region and easily navigate documents (contracts, invoices, etc.).
|
|
|
|
|
ScienceSoft’s Business Analyst and Digital Supply Chain Consultant Sergey Legchekov shares his experience: To benefit from fast and efficient supplier onboarding, facilitated supplier communication, and robust automation across procurement activities and document exchange, you need to encourage maximized adoption of a supplier portal among suppliers. Make sure your supplier portal provides intuitive UX and convenient UI to guarantee effective supplier engagement with a portal and drive high portal adoption rate. |
|
|
|
Implementation Costs and Financial Outcomes of SRM Software
The cost, duration and approach to SRM software implementation vary greatly depending on:
- The number and complexity of a solution’s functional modules, including the degree of automation (implementation of RPA and AI-powered features).
- The volume of data that needs to be migrated from the spreadsheets and/or existing SRM software.
- The number and complexity of integrations (with ERP, WMS, inventory management software, etc.).
- Data storage type (a centralized database or a private blockchain).
- Required application types – web, mobile, desktop – and a number of platforms supported (for mobile).
- SRM software availability, performance, security, latent capacity and scalability requirements.
Based on ScienceSoft's experience in SRM software implementation, a custom SRM system of average complexity requires $200,000 – $400,000 in investments. The implementation of such a solution takes 7 – 13 months.
Detailed timelines for each stage of SRM implementation
A typical ScienceSoft's project on SRM system implementation covers the following stages and timelines:
- SRM requirements engineering & design: 4 weeks.
- Project planning: 1 – 2 weeks.
- SRM software development: 4 – 6 months.
- SRM software integration with other systems: 1 – 12 weeks.
- SRM software deployment and testing: 1 – 2 months.
- User training: 2 – 4 weeks.
- After-launch support, maintenance, and evolution: continuous.
HIDE
With SRM software, you can reach up to 260% annual ROI.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management: Procurement & Sourcing Module
Best for
End-to-end procurement and sourcing for small and mid-sized companies.
Description
- 360-degree overview of all supplier information.
- Configurable setup of sourcing and purchasing workflows (e.g. supplier approval workflow for specific products/services.
- RFQ supplier bids scoring and comparison.
- Easy traceability of supplier-related documents (purchase requisitions, expense reports, etc.).
- Seamless integration with Microsoft Power BI for self-service supplier analytics (to generate data-rich reports on dashboards related to collaboration with the suppliers).
Cautions
Complicated and costly customization to cover business-specific SRM needs and smoothly integrate with legacy corporate systems.
Oracle Supply Chain Management: Procurement
Best for
Procurement for small and mid-sized companies.
Description
- Supplier qualification management (with automated supplier scoring) and compliance monitoring.
- Automated purchase requisition approval workflow and status tracking + automated creating of purchase orders from approved requisitions.
- Supplier portal for simplified communication with suppliers.
- Authoring of supply contracts: templates, clause libraries, built-in collaboration tools to draft compliant contracts.
- Seamless integration with Oracle Financial Cloud to manage financial transactions.
Cautions
Costly subscription ($400 per user/month), which makes the solution economically unfeasible for businesses with large teams involved in SRM processes.
SAP Ariba: Supplier Management
Best for
Supplier management and development for mid- and large-sized companies.
Description
- Automated supplier onboarding and qualification process.
- Supplier segmentation and performance management (with the help of scorecards, questionnaires filled out by the suppliers and KPIs monitoring).
- Matrix-based supplier reports and analysis (based on category, location, and business unit).
- Real-time risk exposure monitoring (reputational, compliance, financial, sustainability, and operational risks).
- Self-service for suppliers to manage their own information.
- Seamless integration with SAP Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Buying, Spend Management.
Cautions
Substantial customization efforts to meet unique SRM needs. Supplier sourcing, procurement management and spend management require add-on modules, which drives solution cost.
Enterprise Cloud SRM Software
Best for
All aspects of supplier relationship management for large enterprises with complex IT infrastructure.
Description
- A custom-made feature set to address business-specific needs.
- Advanced capabilities that off-the-shelf products do not provide, e.g., custom calculations of supplier ratings or bid compliance scores, comprehensive AI-based analytics on supplier risks, intelligent spend forecasting.
- Flexibility to easily employ new functionality or advanced techs when required.
- Smooth and cost-effective integration with back-office systems (ERP, WMS, etc.), including legacy software.
- Ensured compliance with required global, country- and industry-specific regulations.
- AI-powered fraud detection to guarantee security of SRM solution and data it stores.
- Support for a centralized database or blockchain-based data storage.
Cautions
Requires collaboration at the requirements engineering and project planning stages.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is an international IT consulting and software development company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. We provide consulting and development services to help businesses build effective SRM solutions tailored to their unique vendor relationship management needs. Being an ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified company, we rely on a mature quality management system and guarantee cooperation with us does not pose any risks to our customers' data security. Check ScienceSoft’s offering on software consulting to learn more about our approach.