Welcome to Automation & Scale - the 3-minute email that teaches you how to design & integrate AI-powered automations so you can profitably scale your business.

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It’s an incredible time to be a business owner.

The cutting-edge technologies at our fingertips allow us to design and deploy efficient, scalable, profit-boosting systems with minimal effort and cost.

Especially if you’re dealing with the ever-demanding tasks of vendor and supplier management.

(and we all do!)

Once you recognize the power of integrating artificial intelligence and automation into your daily operations, you owe it to your business (and yourself) to set up your first automated supplier management system.

Today I’m going to guide you on how to do just that, in 5 actionable steps.

Let’s dive in:

1. Centralize supplier info in a database

First, implement AI-powered supplier relationship management (SRM) software or CRM to create a centralized database for all vendor information and interactions.

Platforms like Hiver allow you to:

• Store contact details
• Track communications history
• Manage documents like contracts

Take the time to organize existing supplier info into your new SRM.

Set up profiles for each that include contacts, capabilities, offerings, and other key data that will help you match suppliers to future needs quickly.

2. Use AI to collect and analyze supplier data

Leverage AI tools to automatically pull in and analyze data on all suppliers for deeper insights.

Platforms like DataFox can crawl the web to collect financial health metrics, executive leadership changes, news events, technology stacks, ESG ratings, and other data to create comprehensive supplier profiles.

You can also use AI to categorize suppliers based on product categories, capabilities, certifications, locations served, and other attributes.

This makes it easy to identify the right suppliers later when needs arise.

3. Track and monitor supplier KPIs

In your SRM, set up scorecards for each supplier to track key performance indicators like:

• Responsiveness to inquiries
• Product quality complaints
• On-time delivery rate
• Budget accuracy
• Order accuracy

The system can automatically monitor this data and notify you when metrics drop below target thresholds for any supplier.

This enables you to proactively follow up to resolve any performance issues.

4. Forecast future supply needs

Advanced AI tools can analyze your past purchase orders, sales cycles, inventory, and other data to accurately predict future material and supply needs.

The system can then share these forecasts with suppliers so they are prepared to deliver.

For example, if AI predicts you will need 20% more materials from a certain supplier next quarter based on sales growth trends, it can email that supplier an alert so they ramp up production and staffing in advance.

5. Automate replenishment orders

For routine purchases of materials or services, use AI to completely automate purchase orders and follow-ups based on predetermined inventory thresholds and lead times.

When your inventory for a supplier’s product falls below a set level, have the system automatically inform the vendor and place a replenishment order for delivery by the needed date.

This eliminates routine manual purchase processes to free up your procurement team’s time.

Final Thoughts

Managing an ever-growing supplier network doesn’t have to mean getting buried under manual busywork.

AI and automation can handle mundane tasks like data entry and analysis so you can focus on big-picture supplier relationship building and management.

See you next week.

Ed

One more thing, before you go:

If you’ve got an established business & want help implementing these AI-automations so you can effortlessly scale…

Direct message me on Linkedin (click here) saying “Automate” and I'll show you how to get started with AI today.

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