For long-term success in today’s oft volatile supply chain environment, strong relationships with suppliers are more important than ever. Procurement decisions, then, should be made with this question in mind: How much do I really trust my suppliers? 

That sort of trust encompasses many things. First and foremost, it means that the resources you’re procuring are ready and available when and where you need them. It should also account for your organization’s overall goals and strategy, including the priorities of all your teams, including engineering, quality assurance, manufacturing and leadership. 

And, of course, it concerns price. But today’s procurement professionals should be striving for more than just product-at-a-price. Sometimes the cheaper option, if delivered unreliably and inconsistently, can cause more damage to your bottom line. Conversely, building strong supplier partnerships based on integrity, shared values and true reliability can make all the difference.

When evaluating a potential supply partner, it can be helpful to step back and consider the fundamentals of procurement and their importance to your business. Purchasing is the process of how goods and services are ordered. By contrast, procurement is a business philosophy that deals with the sourcing activities, negotiation and strategic selection of goods and services that are of importance to an organization. 

That means your organization’s mission, values and business goals should fundamentally inform procurement decisions. And just as procurement is more than just purchasing, procurement best practices are bigger than just bottom-line pricing. Unless your overall company strategy can be boiled down to simply searching for the cheapest price when sourcing critical supplies, there are a number of important qualities you should be evaluating when seeking to build true partnerships that can propel your business forward. Critical attributes can include:

Reliability. A strategy sometimes used to reduce operating expenses is known as low-cost country sourcing. However, this can sometimes mean unpredictability. Shifting geopolitical conditions and other factors can disrupt international supply chains, and you may be left wondering when or if your critical components will arrive. By contrast, sourcing from a domestic supplier can help introduce greater reliability into your supply chain, as well as shorter lead times. 

Quality. Component quality can make or break your finished product or goods. Poor quality components can lead to product failure, costly warranty claims, safety hazards and increased costs. These are high stakes—and sacrificing quality for the sake of short-term savings could be more costly in the long term.

Also important is quality consistency. In high-stakes, end-use applications — think medical devices, for example — it takes just one poor-quality component to lead to suboptimal and costly outcomes. 

Responsiveness. Being responsive to your needs means listening to your concerns or questions, and providing answers in a timely manner. In an ideal scenario, your supplier may even proactively offer solutions in anticipation of your needs, business conditions or other variables. 

Technical support. Organizations tend to outsource components and services because they lack the in-house capabilities to make them themselves, or because it’s unprofitable to do so. This also means they’re not typically the experts on developing such components, and are relying on their suppliers to provide technical support and expertise. An ideal partner should be able to do just that, helping you solve technical challenges if and when they arise. 

Capacity. A suppliers’ ability to deliver on your needs as they fluctuate is critical. When demand is up, you need to trust that your supplier has the capacity to deliver higher volumes to meet your production schedule; if they can’t, that inability will create an artificial cap on your production volume. For this reason, it’s important to consult with your suppliers about capacity early and often. 

Communications. A true partnership — and not just a vendor-buyer relationship — hinges on open, two-way communication. You should be able to have honest discussions with your partners about all of the qualities we’ve just reviewed. If you can, it should tell you a lot about their character.

Building trust with key suppliers and maintaining a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship is a process. Instead of focusing on the product you immediately need, begin to ask the bigger questions in order to find a supplier that fits with your own goals. (Again, transparent communication here is of utmost importance.) By asking questions, you’ll soon discover which suppliers want to just sell you a product, versus those whose capabilities align with your needs and who you can grow with strategically.

Ask suppliers some big-picture questions: What do you do well today? What are your challenges? How do you want to grow, and what investments are you making? In addition to what you can do for us, what are your other capabilities?

Be candid with your suppliers. Tell them exactly what you need, and what your pain points are. Be as specific as possible. Good suppliers tell you if they can offer a solution or not. They’ll be willing to invest in a few preliminary meetings to determine if they can partner with you to grow together.

The ability of supply chain professionals to trust their most important suppliers is increasingly critical. This is rapidly becoming the new best practice, and today’s most promising and successful leaders are energetically embracing a partnership approach to procurement that’s paying off with great results.

By assessing which suppliers are willing to grow with you, you’ll uncover the trust and character that will protect your entire supply chain.

Dave Krupinski is vice president of sales and marketing with Kent Elastomer Products.