Frequently Asked Questions

Supplier Performance Evaluations (SPE) are a reflection on a supplier’s ability to execute based on a widely acceptable set of performance expectations. Using these criteria, your peers can rank suppliers with whom they have worked and provide valuable input for your supplier selection process.

Getting input from Supplier Performance Evaluations made by your peers can save you a lot of time, money, and aggravation by avoiding poorly performing suppliers, as well as by reducing risk to your supply chain. Additionally, you will benefit from discovering well - performing suppliers, some of which you may not have been aware of before. Either way, having such input will save you time during your research when expanding your supplier base or looking for alternatives.

Although one can easily find in the literature dozens of various indicators to evaluate suppliers, there is a fairly small set that is agreed upon by most experts:

• Reliability - ranks the ability of this supplier to meet commitments and be trustworthy in the day-to-day activities. This attribute directly relates to the risk factor of engaging with this supplier. Higher number means less risk.
• Financial Stability - ranks the financial stability of this supplier. If a supplier cannot meet obligations due to financial problems, your own reputation with customers may suffer. This criterion is approached differently, depending on the importance of this supplier to your supply chain.
• Quality and Continuous Improvement - ultimately the quality of your product is directly impacted by the level of product quality provided by your suppliers. Given the variety of product offerings on the market, this parameter is relative to your own quality standards. For example, quality impact of an airplane engine turbine blade cannot be compared to the quality of a coat hanger. Nevertheless, this means that meeting your own quality standards. For example, quality impact of an airplane engine turbine blade cannot be compared to the quality of a coat hanger. Nevertheless, this means that meeting your own quality standards for your suppliers is of paramount importance to achieving your business objectives.
• Competitive Pricing - ranks the pricing of this supplier when compared with other potential suppliers. In the current economic climate, pricing is one of the key reasons people are aggressively reviewing their supplier bases. However, please note that all the other parameters mentioned here will impact the total cost of ownership (TCO) of working with a supplier.
• On-time delivery - ranks the supplier’s ability to deliver goods on time. This is where your supplier reputation defines your reputation. Today, suppliers become an extension of your own manufacturing or assembly lines. In the world of orders placed via the internet, your ability to meet delivery expectations very often will determine the next purchase from this customer. This could also lead to lower carrying costs, as you will require a lower safety stock and inventory investment.
• Customer Service and Communication - ranks the level of customer service and ongoing communication with this supplier. Working with a supplier means more than buying what that supplier has to offer. It is about finding solutions to problems, having access to the right people to address these problems, and having the ability to coordinate timely resolutions. Language, culture, and attitude are critical for successful communication and good on-going service.
• Informative and functional Website - ranks how easy it was to find relevant product and company related information on the supplier website. You would expect that in the 21st century, having an informative and functional website would be a typical scenario. However, given the global nature of the supply chain, this is not at all a given. But having this criterion will help you decide for yourself whether to engage with this company or not.
• Approach to Partnership - ranks alignment of this supplier’s goals to yours. This plays an especially important role in any plans for growth, achieving diversity, and providing good service.
• Innovation - ranks commitment of suppliers to innovation. Innovation is a key foundation upon which your own business can either strive or decline. When product launch times and time to market are as critical as ever, innovation is a key to meeting these challenges.
• Environmental Record -rank supplier’ environmental record. Going green is not only a good practice, but often times a wise economic choice buying from polluters can really damage your own reputation.
• Corporate Social Responsibility  – is an indicator of supplier’s labor policies, health and safety record, human rights and other factors (See http://www.sa-intl.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/2008StdEnglishFinal.pdf for more details on social accountability standards). When picking a new supplier this should be a factor for serious consideration. Higher number means higher social responsibility standards.

Yes, we developed an easy to use process to do just that. You can use a predefined excel template, fill it in and upload the data via Import Suppliers functionality under Services section.

You can invite your existing suppliers as a member of our community. After you register, go to My Account ->Invite Suppliers option. You can edit the invitation text and even get credit for inviting your suppliers should they join our community.

No, suppliers do not pay to get on this site. We allow suppliers to submit their details to expand the choice of suppliers available for performance evaluations.

Any personally identifiable information you submit to SupplierEvaluations.com is password-protected for your privacy and security. We use industry-standard SSL-encryption to protect data transmissions. To read more about security on SupplierEvaluations.com, please refer to our privacy policy.

SupplierEvaluations.com is an online resource that is dedicated to capturing and sharing supplier performance evaluations among our professional community members. Membership with SupplierEvaluations.com puts you in touch with your peers’ experiences in sourcing, qualifying, and selecting suppliers, letting you benefit from the collective knowledge in this area. As a registered member, you will benefit from the range of services we provide to help you in your daily activities of selecting, evaluating, and managing suppliers. As a registered member you can:

• Manage your supplier performance data in one place.
• Use your performance evaluations to manage and provide feedback to your suppliers.
• Find suppliers for goods and services you need, evaluated based on the actual experience of your peers. 
• Access Supplier Performance Evaluations submitted by your peers.
• Compare supplier performance based on existing evaluations.
• Subscribe and get notifications about new evaluations and updates.

You can also:

• Submit Supplier Performance Evaluations on suppliers with whom you have actually worked.
• Get credit for contributing.
• Comment on topics of your interest.
• Connect with your peers.
• Get the latest news from our community.
• Learn more about evaluating suppliers.

Yes, the membership is free.

10. How do I join?

Simply register  with our community online. Your information will not be used for any purposes other than for accessing this site. You can choose to remain anonymous, in which case your name will never be disclosed. Once you fill in the registration form, we will validate your email address. We prefer that you submit your work email address, which will be only used for verification purposes. For all other communications from this site, you can choose your private email address if you prefer.

To learn more about the benefits of the membership, please click here.

To register, please click this link.

Yes, we do have a referral program. Here is how it works:

• If a member you referred to us signs up for a Basic membership subscription, you will get a $5 download credit.
• If a member you referred to us signs up and pays for a Silver membership subscription, you will get $10 off your membership fees for the same year or the same amount of credit towards your own downloads.
• If a member you referred to us signs up and pays for a Gold membership subscription, you will get $20 off your membership fees for the same year or the same amount of credit towards your own downloads.
• If a member you referred to us signs up and pays for a Platinum membership subscription, you will get $40 off your membership fees for the same year or the same amount of credit towards your own downloads.

Yes. We reward community members for their contributions to the content of our site.

Essentially, sharing more information with the community means paying less for the information you need. Each submitted evaluation buys you one Supplier Performance Evaluation (SPE) report credit.

Conflicts of interest occur when you have competitors submitting evaluations about each other. This type of conflict is easily detectable and we will inflict penalties for those involved. We strongly believe that the world today is a small place and showing lack of integrity will go far to ruin someone’s reputation. Also, we provide a dispute resolution process that will address any inconsistencies as they arise.

Please follow the instructions on the instructions in our Resources section.

Our preferred method of payment is credit card. For our corporate customers, we offer a pay by check service based on the purchase orders or prepaid purchases. This requires a contract to be in place.

All members of our community have the right to submit comments on our blog as well as participate in forums.

Yes.

Free membership allows you access to downloads, blogging, and social networking.

Yes, we offer social networking features that let you communicate with your peers via private messages.

Evaluations are valid for 12 months beginning at the moment of publication on our site for the first time. If an evaluation is about to expire, we will send a message to the contributor to update the information with the latest data. If no such data exists, this part of the supplier evaluation is archived and is no longer part of an active Supplier Performance Evaluation report.

That depends on the regulations by which your company is governed and by the personal choices you make during sign-up. For public companies, the typical answer is no, as this would violate ethics rules for most. You do, however, get reward points towards your membership or your downloads. For private companies, we offer a direct compensation as a percentage of the revenue generated by the evaluations their employees have submitted. Employees can be paid directly or via their companies.

Yes. Please review our Advertising section for details. A member of our staff will get in touch with you to discuss your request in more detail. Please make sure to include all of your contact information.

We created the Supplier Excellence Badge program, which allows the best evaluated suppliers to incorporate our SupplierEvaluations Excellence Badge into their websites. Suppliers will see their status changed on their pages and notification will be sent to the supplier’s contact info if a Badge status has been granted to a supplier. We then provide a supplier web kit to incorporate the actual seal into the supplier’s web site.
 

Yes. Suppliers, like any other members, can purchase their own SPE reports, as well as those concerning other suppliers.