We recently wrote about how the growth of the average business’ global supply chain is increasing the need for them to monitor the quality of the vendors and suppliers. But while the task of conducting a supplier audit has certainly catapulted in recent years, the truth is that it has always been a crucial component of doing business for ecommerce brands.
Sure, global supply chain issues and an uncertain economy have ratcheted up the pressure on brands to strengthen their supplier relationships. But when you’re operating in a landscape as cut throat as ecommerce, just one supplier mistake or oversight can leave a detrimental mark on your brand’s reputation and bottom line. Which is why it’s critical that supplier audits are always an integral part of your growth strategy – regardless of how strong or weak the economy is, and how reliable you deem your supply chain to be.
In this blog, we look at 3 top reasons why you should conduct a supplier audit. Let’s get started.
1. Identify Potential Risk Areas
A risk management strategy helps you take a structured approach to address the potential risks that can occur in your company. That includes not only your own internal risk areas, but the risks created by working with suppliers. By auditing your vendors, you can identify these risk areas before they become a major issue in your manufacturing processes and damage your business’ operations or reputation.
Your audit helps you monitor your vendors and, if risk areas emerge, bring them up to your suppliers so they can create an action plan to address those areas. You can then create specific strategies to address those issues and make sure you manage them in the future.
2. Improve Your Supplier Relationships
Your relationships and communications with your suppliers help create a supplier relationship management strategy. You want to have strong relationships with your suppliers to ensure that you are able to address concerns, receive great service, and understand the patterns that occur in your supply chain.
While an audit might seem counterintuitive to a strong relationship, the opposite is actually true. By conducting audits and examining your vendors’ practices, you can offer your assistance in helping them improve and avoid sudden problems that arise without warning. You can also build stronger lines of communication between yourself and your suppliers to inform each other about important information, and ultimately build a stronger and more reliable supply chain.
3. Increase Customer Satisfaction
No customer wants to have their order delayed or receive finished goods that are lacking in quality or don’t work as they should. But when you work with substandard vendors, this becomes a common occurrence. You need to ensure that the raw materials you receive from your vendors meet quality standards before you use them in your manufacturing processes.
When vendors aren’t meeting their quality assurance standards, you might have to reorder materials or cut down on production, which ultimately hurts your end customers. By auditing your suppliers on a regular basis and ensuring that they are producing quality products, you’re also protecting your reputation, your bottom line, and keeping your own supply chain moving forward with fewer risks of delays.
Conduct Efficient Supplier Audits With Anvyl
Supplier audits are an important part of staying on top of your production process and making sure your finished products meet the highest standards. Your suppliers are key in the process of making your end products, and working with substandard suppliers can significantly damage your own reputation. Taking the time to create an audit process that covers all relevant areas of your suppliers helps you improve your internal audits and supplier relationships.
At Anvyl, we understand the importance of conducting effective and efficient supplier audits. That’s why we work to help you standardize your supply chain management processes and gather important metrics and information about your supplier relationships. To learn more, request a demo of Anvyl to start streamlining your operations today.
