Marketing - Agile Supplier Relationship
In the Apparel, Footwear & Accessories (AFA) marketing world, the greater your ability to move, the faster you can succeed. Procurement professionals that manage marketing categories need to have supplier relationships that are agile enough to react to rapidly evolving brand strategies. An agile supplier relationship diminishes the downtime between the reaction and the implementation phase of an evolving brand strategy. Procurement professionals are in charge of these supplier relationships and can indirectly help influence a brand's marketing success through effective management.
To add to the complexity of having an agile agency base, procurement professionals are challenged to develop and maintain these relationships across a diverse spectrum of products and services, including creative content, printed materials, and POP fixtures. As such, procurement must look to develop a framework for dealing with suppliers according to their spend level and overall impact on the brand messaging. This framework should allow multi-channel firms a systematic means of engaging with partners that remain flexible as a brand grows and develops to meet consumer trends.