Retail surgery: How to better transact with suppliers

As digital innovation becomes increasingly commonplace in retailers’ stores and online offers, it is easy to overlook the need to renew the technology used at the back-end of a business, particularly in relation to suppliers.

A sure-fire way to damage a relationship with a valued supplier is late payment, which is often caused by inaccurate supplier information and data – an issue digital collaboration would help solve.

Christian Lanng, chief executive of electronic invoicing company Tradeshift, says: “A lot of companies are running archaic IT infrastructures that can’t cope with the need to operate digitally throughout the business.”

“Poor digital infrastructure limits a firm’s ability to collaborate, increasing the chances of inaccurate supplier information being collected and unsatisfactory payment decisions being made.”

The importance of updating back-end operations to keep pace with multichannel developments is vital for retailers to successfully work with their suppliers.

Digitising business processes can play a big role in building quality relationships with suppliers. Investing in the back-end operations of retail businesses increases an organisation’s ability to connect, collaborate and transact. It also removes issues that makes these processes time-consuming for retail employees and damaging for supplier relations.

“In order to become a successful digital company, it’s imperative that all business processes be reevaluated” says Lanng.

“If not, there will ultimately be disconnect in terms of efficiency, access to data and visibility across the end-to-end process – resulting in delays and errors, and consequently, late payments.”