Directorate of distance education

Supplier Relationship Management
The term “Supplier Relationship Management” (SRM) refers to the 
use of technologies by an enterprise to improve the supply mechanism at 
its suppliers. Just like employee relationship management, this concept is 
based on customer relationship management.
The goal of SRM is to allow an enterprise to improve communication 
with its different suppliers, share a methodology, business terms and 
information with them and improve familiarity with each other to optimize 
the supply process. In turn, SRM is also intended to ensure that suppliers 
familiarize themselves better with the core business of the enterprise and 
its different products to ensure a customized supply.
SRM Processes
SRM solution editors generally define a process comprising four 
large stages:
➢ Cooperative design, consisting in integrating the supply problems 
from the time a product is designed by involving suppliers via a 
cooperative design tool while ensuring a minimum cost at all levels;
➢ Identification of suppliers (sourcing), whose purpose is to identify 
potential suppliers and to prepare a scorecard by qualifying 
them in accordance with their cost, production capacity, delivery 
deadlines, and their quality guaranties. At the end of this stage, the 
best suppliers can be invited to submit bids;
➢ Selection of suppliers, via a reverse auction mechanism, where the 
roles of the buyer and of the seller are reversed. The SRM tools 
generally have a bidding interface which makes it possible to make 
three types of requests (commonly called “Request for x” and 
written RFx):
➢ RFQ (Request For Quotation), i.e. a simple request to quote prices 
for relatively common products. The supplier who submits the 
lowest bid is generally selected;
➢ RFP (Request For Proposal), i.e. a request directed to suppliers 
to submit a commercial proposal, specifying a price, but also 

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information on the company, its solvency, production capacities, 
stock and delivery deadlines, etc. A supplier is selected in accordance 
with a selection system which makes it possible to evaluate the 
proposals in accordance with different criteria.
➢ RFI (Request For Information), which consists in issuing a simple 
request for information regarding the products and services offered 
by the suppliers, which does not necessarily imply any bidding.
➢ Negotiation, whose purpose is to formalize the contract between 
the enterprise and the selected supplier, possibly including specific 
clauses regardign logistics, terms of payment, service quality, or 
any other special duties.