expedite, or otherwise change many of the existing POs. And that must be done quickly. This alone requires multiple people not to mention departments in some companies.

Chances are you may have conventional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) services set-up with a few of your largest suppliers, but you find it not economical and not effective especially when exchanging low transaction volumes for the many smaller suppliers that your company deals with. Some of your suppliers simply cannot afford conventional EDI services anyway.

You are probably required to collect, analyze, evaluate, and report performance of suppliers, purchasing volumes, amount, lead times, costs, etc. Sounds familiar?

Unlike the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs, Supplier Relaitonship Management (SRM) systems deals with suppliers that are directly linked to the business transaction systems on an ongoing basis. Requesting quotations and dealing with the business side of the process may look similar in both CRM and SRM. However, SRM is arguably more integrated with the back office transaction systems. The following explains some of the essential elements of a typical SRM system.