A good market intelligence strategy is becoming increasingly important as managing supplier risk gets even more complex.
Processes around due diligence, supplier on-boarding and monitoring are under focus as companies are under pressure to maintain a buoyant supply chain whilst facing more scrutiny and transparency around who their suppliers are.
Understanding supplier stability is key to a flexible and robust supply chain. But what about the financial health of the supplier’s corporate group, and specifically its owners? And if the supplier’s beneficial owners are individuals then there are checks that should be done before contracts can be agreed.
“Group stability, not just supplier stability, is key,” according to Louise Green, Global Marketing Director of company information specialists Bureau van Dijk. “Looking at one part of the group doesn’t give you the full picture. We help organisations understand their supplier base better. We show them who owns their suppliers and help them assess if there are links to politically exposed persons (PEPs) or sanction lists, and if there is adverse news, or other risk, associated with them.”
Risk managers need to maintain their supply chain, protect their reputation and they’re often now required to satisfy credit terms or other agreements that expect them to run regular, comprehensive checks on their suppliers.
Monitoring and analysing suppliers is the premise behind Bureau van Dijk’s Procurement Catalyst – a platform that blends Bureau van Dijk’s company and risk information with the organisation’s own knowledge of suppliers. Procurement Catalyst delivers dashboards that swiftly highlight risk areas across the supplier base, help on-board new suppliers, and monitor suppliers automatically with their sophisticated alerts.
“We specialise in information on private companies and combine data from 120 sources (including from emerging markets) to create our global company database of 170 million companies,” says Green. “We help procurement managers create an effective market intelligence strategy and give them the tools to develop efficient, bespoke risk analysis processes – both financial and reputational – plus a centralised platform to store and manage their procurement data.”
