Supplier Management
Buying Solutions' employs a number of measures to actively and positively manage the travel framework suppliers against a regular program of structured meetings and processes. This is in addition to normal "day-to-day" framework management activity.
Regular review meetings
Each travel framework supplier has a formal review meeting on a quarterly basis. The supplier is obliged to complete a highlight report in advance of each review meeting to provide a "snapshot" of the previous quarters' activity and to be used as a discussion document at the review meeting. Additionally, MI is used and performance against agreed key performance indicators is measured.
The initial batch of quarterly review meetings took place in between October and November 2006. The next set of review meetings have been scheduled at quarterly intervals throughout 2007.
Supplier Rating Programme
Buying Solutions' have introduced a formal Supplier Rating Programme to further enhance supplier management activity. This acts as not only a method of continued performance monitoring, but also the potential to identify and progress opportunities for supplier development which may lead to service enhancements where appropriate.
A formal vendor rating is conducted on a bi-annual or annual basis with each supplier. Four key areas are reviewed. These being:
- Quality of customer service
- Responsiveness to Buying Solutions'
- Delivery of consistent low costs
- Provision of accurate and timely management information
For the Travel framework agreements, the first formal vendor rating exercise was conducted in tandem with the planned review meetings in January and February 2007.
Systems Compliance Audit
This is designed to ensure that suppliers are in compliance with their obligations and will normally take place at least once (possibly more than once) over the term of the framework agreement. The main areas looked at on the systems compliance audit are:
- Audit certificates
- Insurance details
- Quality accreditation
- Systems and written procedures
- Business continuity
- Environmental policy
Sustainability and Environmental Policy
A key consideration during the procurement of the travel framework agreement was how to cater for emerging policy on sustainability and environmental issues.
The Buying Solutions' procurement team secured the involvement of colleagues from Defra during the tendering exercise and ensured that appropriate terms and conditions were written in to the framework agreement to oblige successful suppliers to work with both ourselves (as the contracting authority) and customers (users of the framework agreement) to ensure that sustainability and environmental policy was catered for. We are in discussions with DEFRA to take forward the embedding of sustainability and environmental considerations working together with the travel framework suppliers.
Further Information
Visit our Supplier Zone for further information about the auditing, supplier rating and review process.
