The Building Blocks Of Successful Supplier Onboarding

At Valtatech, our team has experience leading over 70 source to pay automation projects across the world – we’ve seen it and done it across every industry and organisation type. A key part of a source to pay solution implementation is the supplier onboarding process, if your supplier are successfully onboarded you are far more likely to get the efficiency and automation gains from transacting with those suppliers. In this article we cover the building block of successful supplier onboarding campaigns.

COLLECT DATA

Gather data on your current suppliers including:

• Invoice volumes
• Spend
• Email contact details
• Strategic Priority

Use this data to segment your suppliers into Top 10, High volume, medium volume and low volume groups.

CHOOSE ONBOARDING PATHWAYS

Based on your platform, identify the most appropriate channels for each supplier segment. This should be driven by what will lead to the highest level of automation and optimisation, appropriate for each segment.

PERSONALISE YOUR COMMUNICATIONS

Using the data you have on your suppliers and the most appropriate onboarding channels for them, send personalised comms to each segment. Use as much personalisation as possible, avoid “Dear Supplier” if you can.

CREATE AUTOMATED ONBOARDING FLOWS

Automate the onboarding process based on the pathway that the supplier chooses. For example if they select email, have an auto response that sends the email invoice instructions automatically.

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Make sure you track where each of your suppliers are in the onboarding process. Your onboarding progress gives you an indicator of what your risk is at go live with your suppliers. Focus on following-up with the high volume suppliers first then work your way through the priority list.

JUST IN TIME

Give suppliers notice that a change is coming, time to react and ask questions. This needs to be close enough to the change that it gets the priority it needs but not so close that they do not have time to respond. Send reminders leading up to go live and confirm when the cutover happens.

SUGGESTED COMMUNICATIONS TIMELINE

• 4 months before go liveContact High volume suppliers
• 6 weeks before go liveContact Medium and Low volume suppliers
• 2 weeks before go liveConfirm go live date
• 1 week before go liveReminder
• On launch dayWe’re Live!

In this article we’ve covered the building blocks of successful supplier onboarding, which when done right is the difference between measurable return on investment and happy stakeholders and a failing project.

If you’d like more information or want to talk to us about this in more detail – Contact us today! We help Finance and Procurement leaders who want to get visibility and control of their spend, drive measurable business value and achieve efficiency through source to pay automation without disrupting their business operations.