We know how difficult it may be to manage a multi-supplier environment. In addition to contract negotiation, there's a ton of minute detail stuff that a procurement team has to go through from benchmark studies to reviewing line-item pricing to ensuring financial viability of the suppliers in question.

Well, now there's a solution from Oracle to help manage and track this data a bit more easier.The Oracle Supplier Hub and Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management applications are designed to keep a record of all your suppliers and also model and track suppliers through processes that are built-in.

Th Oracle Supplier Hub application helps maintain supplier information. Supplier data from various sources can be cleaned up and loaded here. The data can also be merged with data from third party sources such as D & B. Each supplier's quantity metrics like quality, on-time delivery, and invoice-rejection rates and qualitative metrics in terms of supplier performance, quality and reliability can all be stored here.

The Oracle Supplier Hub can be a stand-alone data management application or it can be integrated with legacy applications.

The Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management application "supports onboarding, performance evaluation, and governance of suppliers based on risk" according to Oracle's Vice President of Supply Chain Management. A web-based application allows supplier registration. Ongoing performance is documented through templated questionnaires and a centralized record of suppliers by risk, compliance and adherence to local laws, regulations, etc. are all stored in this application.

In my opinion, this may well become THE tool that every supplier management team will need to invest in. No more excel spreadsheets and records kept in word documents that have no version control. Using this tool, a supplier management team can create automation and efficiency because everything will be centralized and trackable over long periods of time, regardless of who is in charge of managing that supplier.

Oracle Supplier Hub and Oracle Supplier Lifecycle Management licensing is based on the quantity of records managed. The cost is not that affordable at $33 per supplier record with a minimum of 10,000 records for The Supplier Hub and $25 per supplier records with a minimum of 10,000 records for the Supplier Lifecycle Management application.

But in the long run, given the efficiency that can be created with this application, I'm sure companies are sure to realize significant cost savings not just from the usage but also from the better management of suppliers which can reduce organizational risk.