Häufig gestellte Fragen
What is the difference between SRM and Procure-to-Pay (P2P)?
Procure-to-Pay (P2P) covers the operational ordering process — the end-to-end flow from purchase requisition through ordering and goods receipt to invoice verification and payment. Supplier Relationship Management is the strategic layer above it: it encompasses the selection, segmentation, evaluation and development of suppliers and thus determines who you work with in the first place. P2P answers the question of how orders are placed, SRM the questions of from whom and on what terms. In practice the two interlock, as operational P2P data such as delivery reliability and complaints feeds back into the SRM supplier evaluation.
Do I need a separate SRM solution in addition to my ERP system?
That depends on the number of suppliers, the procurement volume and the regulatory pressure. With a manageable supplier base and simple procurement processes, the materials management and purchasing modules of common ERP systems usually cover the requirements sufficiently. With a growing number of suppliers, high variant diversity, a pronounced sourcing function or rising compliance requirements, a dedicated SRM or procurement suite with deeper functionality for supplier portals, risk scoring and sourcing events becomes worthwhile. In both cases, seamless integration without media discontinuities is important so that master data flows consistently between ERP and SRM.
How does SRM differ from classic supplier management?
The terms overlap heavily and are often used synonymously in everyday practice. Supplier management in the narrower sense refers to the organisational tasks around selecting, evaluating and steering suppliers, regardless of the tool used. SRM additionally puts digital process support and end-to-end data integration in the foreground, for instance via central supplier master data, automated evaluations and interfaces to the ERP. SRM can therefore be understood as the software- and data-driven form of supplier management that brings the strategic and operational levels together on a shared data foundation.
Which criteria are used to evaluate suppliers in SRM?
A weighted scoring system across several dimensions is common: quality (such as defect rate in PPM, complaint rate and first-pass yield), logistics or delivery reliability (on-time delivery, quantity reliability, flexibility), costs and terms, as well as service and innovation capability. In many industrial companies, quality and delivery reliability account for the largest share of the overall score. In the automotive industry, many manufacturers and suppliers align their assessment of logistics delivery performance with VDA recommendation 5011, while quality management systems under ISO 9001 (clause 8.4) require the systematic evaluation and monitoring of external providers in any case.
How is an SRM process typically introduced?
The starting point is usually supplier segmentation, often using the Kraljic matrix, which classifies suppliers or procurement items along the dimensions of supply risk and profit impact into strategic, bottleneck, leverage and non-critical groups. On this basis, suitable strategies are defined per segment: close partnership-based management for strategic suppliers, largely automated catalogue ordering for non-critical C-parts. This is followed by maintaining clean supplier master data, defining clear evaluation criteria and gradually automating operational procurement processes. More complex building blocks such as risk scoring or supplier portals are best set up only once the data foundation is in place.
What role does SRM play in the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG) and the EU supply chain directive (CSDDD)?
The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) has applied since 1 January 2024 to companies with 1,000 or more employees and requires the documentation of human-rights- and environment-related due diligence obligations in the supply chain. Following the omnibus reform, the EU directive CSDDD sets significantly higher thresholds (in the current version more than 5,000 employees and over 1.5 billion euros in worldwide net turnover, to be phased in) and must be transposed into national law by Germany, with the LkSG expected to be replaced by a successor act in the medium term. An SRM can serve as the central data source here by structurally storing certificates, self-disclosures, sustainability criteria and risk indicators per supplier and by monitoring deadlines. Affected companies should nonetheless have the scope of their own obligations reviewed legally, as thresholds and implementation deadlines may still change.