Evaluate/Select Suppliers
At some point in your process it will be necessary to evaluate and check suppliers’ credentials – this is known as supplier appraisal.
Supplier appraisal involves assessing the company profile. Your analysis of the supply base and in particular the customer preferencing should be useful. You may also want to research your suppliers’ credentials by checking some of the following:
- Annual report and accounts.
- Checking their financial standing.
- Capacity to deliver the goods or service you require.
- Quality assurance procedures and policies.
- Performance references and track record.
This supplier appraisal is sometimes undertaken via a pre-qualification system, or when new suppliers respond to adverts or submit responses to requests for information, or even at the time their tenders are evaluated. It is usually more efficient to appraise a supplier's suitability prior to inviting them to tender.
Suppliers and their own supply chains should be audited as part of this evaluation in respect of their ethical business practices.
The risk and reward document has been supplied by Royal Mail plc
The supplier evaluation tool and document have been supplied by Ian Riggs
There are further templates on vendor analysis and selection criteria that you may find useful.
