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.