SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM) provides you with innovative methods to coordinate your business processes with your key suppliers and make them more effective. SAP SRM enables you to optimize your procurement strategy, to work more effectively with your supplier pool, and thus to gain long-term benefits from all your supplier relationships.

With SAP SRM you can examine and forecast purchasing behavior, shorten procurement cycles, and work with your partners in real time. This allows you to develop long-term relationships with all those suppliers that have proven themselves to be reliable partners. The efficient processes in SAP SRM enable you to cut down your procurement expenses and to work more intensively with more suppliers than ever before.

There are of course other benefits to creating robust relationships with suppliers from a customers perspective especially if a standalone SRM function exists. Cross category supplier measurement can take place, risk mitigation exercises (both reactive and proactive) can be undertaken and knowledge and innovation can be shared for mutual gain.