5 Things You Should Know About Supplier Portals

sharedserviceslink and PaymentWorks recently ran a survey on the use of suppiler portals in shared services.

Here are 5 things you should know about supplier portals and supplier self-service.

Supplier portals are gaining serious momentum. According to a survey we ran with over 120 finance and shared services professionals, 49% were looking to implement a supplier portal in the next two years, and 39% already had supplier portal solutions.

1. There is a direct correlation between adoption and satisfaction. Not surprisingly, according to our survey, all of our respondents who had eliminated fewer than 25% of supplier communication through the portal were not satisfied with their portal solution. On the other hand everyone who eliminated more than 50% of communications into AP were, naturally, satisfied.
2. Top performers in P2P have direct connections with suppliers. In a recent webinar we ran with the Hackett Group, there is a significant difference between Top Performers in P2P and their peer group when it comes to supplier portals. 70% of Top Performers have direct connection with suppliers through a supplier portal versus 27% of the Peer Group. The Hackett Group also report that Top Performers have 58% of their inquiries coming through a self-service portal, compared with the peer group which has 20% coming through self-service portals.
3. Supplier portals could help you redeploy employees, and improve morale. If dealing with a supplier enquiry takes approx. 8 minutes, it is not long before you need people full time dealing with supplier phone calls and emails. That is not a fun job for a trained finance professional, and there are much more rewarding areas for your team to be put to work.
4. Times have changed for supplier portals. If you considered supplier portal solution a few years ago, or you have been using an ERP based portal, take a look at what is out there again. Some of the cloud and SaaS based supplier portals are slick, fast and surprisingly affordable. Subscription based models mean there is often low up-front investment, so you can trial before you commit extending it to your whole supplier base.