rental industry
Why Rental and Hire Companies need Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
1Many Rental and Hire companies perceive relationships as just being about customers. The fact is this is a very limited view.
Successful Hire and Rental companies also recognize the importance of other vital relationships such as critical suppliers.
So what is a critical supplier?
A critical supplier is one whose loss to your business or change in business arrangements would have a significant detrimental impact on your service delivery or profitability!
Critical Suppliers can be contractors, service providers, equipment providers or even finance providers.
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Managing Critical Suppliers
If you have such critical suppliers, then the next question is how do you manage these relationships now? And more importantly how do you manage the Supplier Performance?
Like any great relationship communication is the key – but good communication it must be founded in facts (accurate information)
Information
To effectively manage any business relationship and its related performance, you need information. What information do you need. Well imagine you were sitting opposite a major critical supplier trying to save the relationship or negotiate a new deal.
You would want to have at your finger tips:
Basic Contact Information: Including the names and roles, contact details for all relevant people within that supplier? That is you would want to know who you are dealing with in the company.
Previous Communication: You would want to be able to have reviewed all previous communication between your company and the supplier. Why, because you want to avoid the “you said” ” he said” discussions. Being able to show actual records of conversations/ meetings, email exchanges even SMS between your staff and theirs, puts you in control of the discussions.
Relationship Value: Finally you would want to have proof of all financial transactions between the company by period. Even down to which bookings, when and too whom the supplier services were used, including any feedback from customers. Demonstrating actual performance to any contractual performance agreements is essential in ensuring that the discussions remain objective and hence fruitful.
If you agree that this is the esential information you need, then the next question is – do you have ready access to such information now? Or do you need to go and find all contracts, ask staff for any emails or notes they have on converstaions with the supplier etc.
If your answers to the above questions gave you cause for concern, then consider installing HireEzy.
HireEzy comes with an inbuilt Supplier Relationship Management system, that:
- Captures all related bookings and financial transactions for that Supplier (Automatically);
- Automatically records all emails or SMS sent to the supplier from your staff;
- Allows notes from meetings, conversations etc to be entered and date time stamped;
- Enables all contracts and agreements to be store, Agreed discount terms;
- Even only allows you to capture all contact information, inc multiple contacts; and
- Even referrals made by Partners, then result in leads are captured.
HireEzy provides you with one place to capture, store, analyze and review all information you need to manage your supplier relationships.
So if you have critical supplier relationships and you dont have a rental software or hire software solution that assists you, then it may be time to consider HireEzy. The world’s most innovative rental and hire management solution.
To find out more or too book a demo, go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
HireEzy is available in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Updated – Is yellow pages still effective for marketing???
Increasing research in the US and Australia has found that the use of the traditional yellow pages is declining.
A survey in May 09 in Australia by Core data, identified that over half of the population DONT want yellow pages even delivered.
People are increasingly turning to the Internet to find information, even local information. Some figures suggest that this the use of on-line search can be as high as 80% of all information searches. The following citation from blognow.com.au, shows the impact:
Even Wall Street acknowledges that the days of printed directories like Yellow pages are numbered.
Dr Lynella Grant is the author of Yellow Page Smarts, she makes the points that relying on just yellow pages is now longer safe: (click any point below to be taken to the article – well worth reading)
Further proof, recently emerged that the recession may be accelerating the decline of Yellow Pages, where the Australian Yellow Page provider Sensis announced on 31 Mar 09, that it was reducing staff numbers by nearly 50 due to a large drop in print classified advertising.
So what to do?
Well the answer is to look at your marketing advertising mix. The Yellow Pages still has a role – but should it be the dominant element? There are alternatives now – the question becomes where to most effectively spend your marketing budget?
This question of balancing the marketing mix is becoming a challenge for all companies. It is no longer static. The Yellow Pages is a barometer of this change. The days of solely relying just on Yellow Pages has finishedfor some companies - we are in a different more social and connected world – where the marketing rules change almost daily.

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