The Supplier Community initiative is growing and growing. One event follows the next. In the context of the Info Event “Discover the SupplyOn Supplier Community”, we presented our journey to the Supplier Community and where it will go from here.
When building the Supplier Community, it was important to us to align our offerings and events with the needs of our suppliers. True to our agile SAFe approach, we have always developed in response to the supplier feedback. One could therefore say that the suppliers have designed their Supplier Community themselves.
This is how it all began
In March 2021, Mario and Regina, the two initiators, met for the first brainstorming session. The following questions were on their minds:
- How can we make our suppliers’ work on the platform even easier?
- How can we find out what is on their minds? And finally:
- How can we communicate with them regularly and enable an exchange?
The Supplier Community initiative was launched to find an answer to exactly these questions.
What has happened so far: Collection of input from suppliers
In the first step, we got in touch with suppliers to find out what they imagine a Supplier Community to be and what they want it to be. For this purpose, the first Supplier Community Days were conducted in May 2021. This virtual kickoff event assembled around 150 suppliers. Together with them, we planned where the journey of the Supplier Community should go and defined initial goals and actions.
What we have implemented so far: Refresh of the “For Suppliers” website
During the Supplier Community Days in May, we discovered that some of SupplyOn’s information offerings were not yet as visible to suppliers as we initially thought. We took this as an opportunity to redesign the supplier website and place offerings such as the SupplyOn Support Center more prominently. From information about the individual SupplyOn solutions, video tutorials and a wide range of support tools to the latest Supplier Community activities and much more – all this information can now be accessed via the modernized “For Suppliers” page.
This is what we are working on at the moment: Supplier Forum
At the Supplier Community Days in May, we asked, among other things, what constitutes a Supplier
- “Guidance Knowledge“
- “Networking Learning”
- ” Know-how influence”
- ” Tips or tricks for using”
- ” Transparent communication “
- ” A community where professionals with similar interests can work together to optimize processes and brainstorm ideas for increased efficiency/ performance of SupplyOn.“
In order to meet all these requirements and wishes, we decided to develop a Supplier Forum. The aim is to create a place on the SupplyOn platform where suppliers can exchange information with us and with each other. Tips and tricks, ideas, thoughts, experiences and opinions can be discussed. The forum guarantees that the Supplier Community will also take place outside the Supplier Community Days: Worldwide and accessible 24/7 — in other words: Community without borders!
This is how the Info Event went
On September 2nd, the time had finally come to launch the Supplier Community and to present to all interested suppliers what we have implemented and planned (and to reassure ourselves again that we are on the right track and fulfilling the suppliers’ wishes).
The outcome was impressive: Almost 1000 people came to the webinar to find out what the Supplier Community is all about.
We kicked off with an inspiring key note from Korbinian, our Vice President for Portfolio Strategy and Marketing. Next we introduced our activities so far (Supplier Community Days). Here we took the opportunity to allow the participating suppliers to define the topic for the Supplier Community Day in November 2021.
True to the motto: “the best is yet to come”, we gave an outlook on further planned community offerings in the last chapter of the presentation: Supplier Forum, next Supplier Community Day on October 27, 2021, and Supplier Membership.
What are we planning for the future of the Supplier Community?
That’s right: In addition to the preparations for the next Supplier Community Day, there is another initiative within the Supplier Community — the Supplier Membership. This means a pool of suppliers who want to get actively involved and leave their contact details with us for this purpose, so that they can provide us with advice and support on demand. Whether testimonial, member of an Expert Group, interviewee in User Interviews or in many other activities: the members themselves choose how they want to get involved. Soon they will also be able to enjoy special benefits.
Conclusion
We are still overwhelmed by the high number of participants at the Info Event! We are pleased that our efforts to make the Supplier Community a success are paying off and that the offerings meet with such a positive response. Now, highly motivated, we are getting back to work and expanding the Supplier Community offerings. So stay tuned, because you’ll be hearing a lot more from us in the near future!
