پیکربندی و مدیریت پرتفولیو منبع استراتژیک

Acknowledging that not all supplier relationships can nor should be close partnerships, this article explores the development of strategic supplier portfolios. The strategic portfolio perspective considers risks, trade-offs, and interdependencies between the firm's array of supplier relationships. Based on over 50 interviews with managers and archival data from 12 multinational companies, a strategic supplier portfolio management framework is developed. The authors explore processes that firms use to plan, implement, and monitor strategic supplier portfolios. This research indicates that by assembling superior supplier bases, developing suppliers and integrating them into product development and manufacturing, strategic supplier portfolios contribute to competitive advantage.

A large and rich body of literature on supplier relationships—often framed as interfirm buyer–seller relationships in business markets—has developed (e.g., Anderson & Narus, 1990, Dwyer et al., 1987 and Jap, 1999). Much has been learned about relationship dynamics, processes, and structures. However, some scholars have noted a tendency to atomize the interfirm relationship by focusing on understanding an individual relationship in isolation of other relationships of the firm Dyer et al., 1998 and Wagner & Boutellier, 2002 or a network of firms Anderson et al., 1994 and Madhavan et al., 1998. An enlarged perspective that considers more than an individual relationship may be useful, especially with regard to supplier management issues. Consistent with such thinking, this paper involves a broadened view of relationship management. It is argued that relationship management consists of more than the management of an individual relationship or even several important individual supplier relationships. Instead, a portfolio perspective is taken, introducing the notion of strategic supplier portfolio management, that is, the management of an array of supplier relationships, each having various characteristics and each serving the firm in different ways. The firm manages its supplier relationships not only individually, but as a set, developing a portfolio of supplier relationships that leads to an optimized supplier base for the firm. While a number of authors have addressed portfolio perspectives in purchasing relationship management (e.g., Bensaou, 1999, Dyer et al., 1998, Gelderman & van Weele, 2002, Nellore & Söderquist, 2000 and Olsen & Ellram, 1997), firms now face conditions of highly turbulent environments, rapid technology turnover, market restructuring, and globalization that have made it necessary to rethink extant portfolio perspectives. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to advance and extend portfolio approaches and systematically examine how supplier portfolios can be configured, developed, and managed to contribute to the firm's value creation and competitive advantage. With the classic strategic management process model as a backdrop, this paper explores how firms (1) formulate the strategy content, (2) process or implement the strategy, and (3) control the supplier portfolio management process so that ultimately it will contribute to sustainable competitive advantage (e.g., Srivastava et al., 1998). In the contemporary business environment, taking a portfolio perspective in supplier management is important because of the increasingly critical role in a firm's success that is played by suppliers. Strategic supplier portfolios allow a firm to take into account the various interdependencies among relationships with its suppliers, and the trade-offs in terms of risks, abilities, and other characteristics. Allocating management capacity, administrative manpower, time, and financial funds selectively across the range of relationships in its supplier portfolio allows the firm to conserve and optimize its inevitably limited resources. To realize the potential benefits of strategic supplier portfolios, firms must understand and develop key tools involving supplier evaluation, selection, development, and integration. Through such processes, a portfolio perspective helps the firm differentiate and set priorities in terms of which supplier partnerships should consume a greater share of resources and which should be managed in a manner that demands fewer resources.

Perhaps the most important implication of this research for managers is that all firms have recognized supplier portfolio management as a strategically important component in the overall success of their firms. This is consistent with supplier relationship management research. Supplier relationship management can be a distinctive advantage for a firm, one that in turn contributes to sustainable competitive edge and high profitability. The strategic supplier portfolio management process is the firm's relational competence (Dyer & Singh, 1998) put into practice. Because of suppliers' potentially significant contribution to a company's competitive position, implementing strategic supplier portfolio management processes could provide real advantage. Importantly, only if firms recognize the fundamental differences between the traditional approach towards suppliers and the proposed strategic supplier portfolio management process will they be able to benefit. One major difference is the portfolio as opposed to a dyadic view. Firms should configure and manage their supplier relationships as a portfolio of relationships and consider various interdependencies and trade-offs among relationships, for example, in terms of risk or resources required. Another major difference to traditional approaches is to understand supplier portfolio management as a strategic management process that should comprise planning, implementation, and control activities. Having acknowledged the importance of strategic supplier portfolio management and the differences from traditional approaches, firms should work toward a better understanding of the antecedents of supplier portfolio management processes. To date, little attention has been paid to the essential activities of supplier portfolio management and their organizational rudiments. Despite the abundance of research on relationship patterns and their impact on company performance, the “how-to” question has been widely neglected. Employing a comprehensive framework, this paper investigated how firms actually should approach the configuration and the subsequent management of supplier relationships and supplier portfolios in supply chains. In this research, a process consisting of five major process steps was identified and the main thrust of each was discussed. In the planning step it is vital that firms set up plans for individual supplier relationships as well as the supplier base as a whole. Based on research, analysis, and projections of the future, these plans are the foundation for the subsequent steps. With regard to implementation, some basic activities are performed by every firm, regardless of its proficiency in supplier portfolio management. The case studies indicate, however, that supplier base configuration can span a much wider array of activities, ranging from segmentation to elaborate supplier communication. Firms are advised to apply them more intensively for gains in performance. In case of performance gaps, or even before problems arise, firms should implement supplier development activities after thorough evaluation of the costs and benefits and the risks associated with them. Risks can originate on the supplier's side, the buyer's side, and in the process itself. Little experience with supplier development, insufficient collaboration, or low incentives are likely problems to be overcome. Also on a case by case decision, a small number of suppliers should be integrated more intensively in internal processes. Depending on the company's goals and the supplier's capabilities, integration may focus on the product development phase or manufacturing phase. In the final step, the monitoring and control step, actual results in terms of outputs or behavior must be measured, assessed, and fed back to the previous process steps. Companies should use the proposed strategic supplier portfolio management process as an instrument to plan, implement, and control supplier relationships and supplier portfolios in a practical and coherent manner. For companies that are just starting to set up supplier portfolio management activities, the process can serve as a reference list for the steps, activities, and organizational prerequisites that need to be considered. At the same time, the framework can also assist companies that aim to further professionalize, structure, and integrate their activities related to supplier portfolio management. As with every major organizational change, the successful implementation of the proposed strategic supplier portfolio management framework requires other capabilities. All the recommendations in this paper largely call for aggressive as opposed to steady approaches. Supply chain management has to shift its focus from striving for the lowest possible purchasing price to the sustained optimization of the strategic supplier portfolios. This as well requires strategic and dynamic thinking in other supply chain functions of a firm. The most successful firms will be those that are able to improve the supplier portfolio management process continuously and hence uphold a strong relational competence. To achieve this end, measures based on suppliers and supplier portfolios must become part of companies' management evaluation systems. Regular changes in the portfolio of supply (internally) and the supply market (externally), as well as changes in the company's functional and business strategies, also require continuous adaptation of supplier portfolio management activities. This is the only way that buyers, together with other members of the company, can exploit sustainable and long-term potential from suppliers and the supply market. Hence, firms should not only focus on working within the supplier portfolio management process. Instead, they should pay a significant amount of time working on further enhancement of the supplier portfolio management process itself. In addition, firms practicing supplier portfolio management have to understand that in the long run results can only be further improved if they take the entire upstream portion of the supply chain into consideration while carrying out the five steps proposed in the framework. For that reason, it is vital to incorporate first-tier, second-tier, and even third-tier suppliers in the process as well. This research sheds some light on how firms can implement strategic supplier portfolio management. However, there is a pressing need for researchers to further examine the organizational background of supplier portfolio management that has been and could be effective in enhancing supplier relationships and supplier portfolios. Specifically, researchers need to explore how integrated supplier portfolio management programs are assimilated and integrated in firms. Many questions remain concerning what are the right forms of organization, processes, and management systems for any given business or industry, and the procedures, success factors, and pitfalls in implementing supplier portfolio management approaches. Furthermore, like other business functions, supplier portfolio management needs better quality and quantity control tools to enable professional control of activities. The development of innovative planning and control strategies such as performance measurement or balanced scorecard, and innovative information and reporting systems in particular, need to be investigated. In addition, as businesses start to use Internet and intranet solutions for gathering information, communicating, designing marketplaces, supply chain integration, sourcing management, and so forth, supplier portfolio management will be revolutionized as well. The effects these new technologies will have on supplier portfolio management are still largely unexplored, both conceptually and empirically. With the preliminary evidence and perspectives provided in this research, investigating the strategic supplier portfolio management processes and practices should provide intriguing research questions as well as benefiting managers.