Supply Chain & Due Diligence
Supplier relationship management
Supplier relationship management is the structured governance of supplier selection, contracting, communication, performance, improvement, payment and exit.
Expert review openNo editor-accepted expert review yetDefinition
Supplier relationship management is the coordinated process through which an organisation selects, contracts with, communicates with, monitors, supports, pays, escalates and, where necessary, exits supplier relationships.
Overview
What it means in practice
Responsible management aligns commercial terms, purchasing behaviour, due-diligence expectations, capacity support, grievance channels and remediation. Audit scores alone do not constitute a relationship strategy.
Why it matters
A buyer's forecasts, prices, lead times, specification changes and payment behaviour can enable or undermine the sustainability performance it asks suppliers to deliver.
Common misconception
Transferring a code of conduct to suppliers does not transfer responsibility for the buyer's own decisions or for due diligence across the relationship.
Review
Public comments appear only after editor acceptance. Draft comments stay in the review queue.
Reviewers choose the definition or an overview paragraph, leave a comment or replacement, and attach evidence or a source link.
Editors compare reviewer cards side by side. AI may help find agreement, conflicts, unsupported claims and possible source issues.
Only an editor-accepted synthesis changes the public page. Reviewer identities are shown only with consent and verification.
Submitted reviews stay private until accepted.
Loading verified endorsements… Endorsements are not votes and never determine publication.
Endorse this definition
Endorse the exact version shown here. This is not a vote, and publication remains an editorial decision.
Review board
Comment on a specific line. Each reviewer stays separate until an editor accepts a merged draft.
Each person comments on the definition or overview in their own draft card, with role, evidence and suggested wording kept together.
AI can compare comments against the current text, flag conflicting claims, surface missing evidence and identify where reviewers agree.
An editor merges compatible suggestions into a draft change, checks sources, records disagreements and decides what can be published.