Supplier relationship management (SRM) has received attention for its potential to improve supply chain effectiveness and dependability through greater collaboration with suppliers. Perhaps you’ve wondered: How many organizations have implemented SRM programs? How dependable are the supply chains for these organizations?

These are the questions APQC, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, and Supply Chain Visions sought to answer through a survey distributed in the fourth quarter of 2010. The results from this survey can be found in "Supplier Relationship Management: Survey Summary Report" in APQC’s Knowledge Base. A companion article, "Supplier Relationship Management: Survey Highlights" discusses some of the broader findings from the survey.

In the survey, organizations were asked to describe their relationships with four types of suppliers:

•    strategic alliance suppliers,
•    outcome-based suppliers,
•    preferred suppliers, and
•    transactional suppliers.

The survey responses revealed the following about the use of supplier relationship management.

•    Many organizations don’t have formal SRM programs, although the amount of implementation varies depending on the type of supplier.
•    Half of responding organizations conduct no formal reviews of their transactional or outcome-based suppliers. The frequency of formal reviews varies for strategic alliance suppliers and preferred suppliers.
•    Despite the variances in how they collaborate with suppliers, the organizations receive most of their purchase orders complete, and the majority of their orders pass inspection on receipt. However, the supplier on-time delivery rate and the percentage of orders delivered within the quoted lead time could be improved.

These survey results and highlights provide great insight into the current SRM practices of organizations and the current state of the organizations' supply chains.