Supplier Enablement Program Checklist

If you are the initiator of a B2B e-commerce program with your suppliers -- e.g. you want all of your suppliers to receive your purchase orders via
EDI and return EDI invoices – you must have the skilled resources to develop, manage and maintain an EDI rollout program to your supplier
community. This includes surveying your community to understand each supplier’s level of EDI readiness; developing and implementing a
community communications plan to convey your program goals and provide education needed; offering various EDI options, such as web-based
forms or Excel-based options for those suppliers that are not ready to integrate EDI with their back-office systems; and supporting each supplier
through the start-up process. This checklist provides a sample list of tasks that you and/or your service provider must perform to ensure
maximum success.

PHASE Step Description

PROGRAM 1. Identify Project Team

PLANNING
Program Manager - Coordinates all activities
- Holds regular status meetings
- Provides status reports to upper management
Program Sponsor Line-of-business executive who is sponsoring the program, such as VP of Procurement or VP of Accounts
Payable

Line-of-Business - LOB representative who participates in all meetings to ensure integration of

program with business processes - e.g. procurement, accounting
- Coordinates with business personnel to make decisions on how to handle
business issues as they arise

EDI coordinator - Coordinates with mapping and testing personnel

- Provides reports on supplier status throughout the program.
2. Conduct Program Kickoff Call - Program sponsor explains program goals, benefits and expected outcomes.
- Program manager explains roles, responsibilities of team members, next steps
- This helps to ensure program buy-in from all organizations in the company.

3. Develop program strategy and plan Project team develops the plan

Supplier incentive Determine why your suppliers want to participate. Is this a condition of doing business? Will you promise
earlier invoice payment? Other benefits to them?

Supplier Survey Do you have up-to-date contact and readiness information for each supplier? If not, conduct a survey to
obtain the required information.
 Supplier Rollout Strategy - Do you want to roll out the program in phases or all at once?
- If in phases, how will you divide up your suppliers into groups for implementation -- by document volume,
by revenue, by company size, by EDI capabilities, by country, etc.?
Supplier contact - Who will contact suppliers?
- How will suppliers be contacted? How many times?
- Will you make the calls/send the emails? Will you outsource?
- Will you hold webinars/seminars to convey messages?

Escalation process - business issues When suppliers refuse to participate in the program, what are the next steps?
Escalation process - technical issues When there are communications, document translation, or data issues, what are the next steps?
Ongoing Support Processes Once suppliers are in production, how will you provide ongoing support for administrative changes (e.g. EDI
addresses, business contact), communications protocol changes, technical troubleshooting, document
tracking, etc.?
Training of internal teams You must ensure that anyone who speaks to a supplier is aware of the program and conveys the right
messages -- e.g. we expect all suppliers to trade electronically and here's how -- before the program is
rolled out. This includes buyers, accounting personnel, etc.
- Who develops and delivers the training?
- When is it scheduled?

Supplier Enablers What type of enabler options should you make available to suppliers -- e.g. web forms, Excel forms?
- Is customization required -- e.g. automatic calculations, special rules?
- Who will do customization?
- Will you develop the enablers yourself or outsource?

Detailed Supplier Enablement Tasks For each supplier enablement option (e.g. EDI, web form, Excel form), develop a detailed task list to guide
the supplier through the implementation process in a step-by-step fashion. For example, how to: register,
test communications, perform document testing, move into production.
Supplier Training - What type of training will all suppliers need, e.g. program overview, new processes, benefits to you,
benefits to them.
- For which enablers will supplier need technical training?
- Who will deliver the training?
- At what point in the process will it be delivered?

Supplier follow-up and tracking system You should have a system to enable:
- Implementers to easily record supplier status, including comments
- Automatic reminders to implementers to follow up with suppliers at specific times
- Automatic reminders to suppliers to move to next step in the process
- Automatic notification of issues needing to be addressed by specific team members
- Automatic generation of summary reports to provide overall status -- e.g. # of suppliers in each phase of
the implementation process, such as # committed, # in process, # needing follow-up, # in testing, # in
production.
- Easy access to specific details and comments about individual suppliers

Repository of Program Resources accessible to You should provide suppliers with easy access to all the materials they will need, including items such as:
Suppliers EDI Implementation Guidelines, test data, Business contact list, FAQs, Copies of training materials,
Corporate Social Responsibility Compliance rules
4. Develop Project Plan
Identify program milestones and timing Identify dates for all tasks in program plan
Schedule regular status meetings On a weekly/bi-weekly basis, team must review supplier enablement status, identify issues, assign action
items, review prior action items, define adjustments to be made to the program
Schedule meetings with senior management and - Engage senior management involvement and procure executive sponsorship
other staff as appropriate - Explain program objectives to key staff responsible for trading partner interactions (such as sourcing,
buyers, etc.)
- Communicate program requirements to pertinent functional organizations within your company, such as
procurement, customer service, logistics, IT, and finance
- Educate staff on importance of prioritizing the program initiative and reinforce importance of trading
partner participation
- Ensure staff conveys a unified, consistent message to trading partners

5. Develop Program Tools

Supplier survey Develop simple form to obtain contact details, current capabilities, and requirements for enablers

Communications to suppliers Develop multiple emails -- introduction, status, etc. Best practices for such communications include:
- Be concise, accurate and professional
- Include a clear deadline for compliance mandates, if applicable
- Include an explanation of consequences for non-compliance
- Include details on how to meet your business requirements, such as specific actions, next steps, etc.
- Provide a source to obtain additional information or ask questions

Educational materials for Buyers and other Develop presentation materials, checklists, other tools to reinforce the program messages
internal organizations
Educational materials for suppliers This includes all content to be shared with suppliers via any of the communications vehicles planned,
including any of the following as applicable:
- Program description
- Webinar content
- Rules for implementation
- Document guidelines
- Supplier enabler options available
- Details regarding access to the repository of program resources and its contents

Supplier Enablers The enabler options you want to be available to your suppliers (e.g. web forms, excel forms) need to be
prepared and tailored to your needs (e.g. mandatory fields, automatic calculations, workflow rules)

Program Resources Repository Design and populate the repository with all the resources to which you want your suppliers to have 24x7
access.
PROGRAM 1. Train internal organizations
EXECUTION
2. Kick off program to suppliers
3. Conduct enablement activities
4. Review status
PROGRAM 1. Define processes for ongoing
EVOLUTION supplier enablement for this program
Train all internal teams as planned.
Send communications as planned.
Make follow-up calls, hold webinars, perform setup and testing tasks, etc., as planned.
Hold regularly scheduled internal meetings to review status and update program as required.
How will you handle additional suppliers as they trickle in? Will you utilize the same process or design a
different one?

2. Define change management process How will you communicate program changes, such as changes to your communications protocols or
implementation of the standard?

3. Determine plans for next program
- Will you add a new set of suppliers?
- Will you add new documents to be implemented with the same set of suppliers to support additional
processes, such as as automating accounting in addition to having automating the purchasing process?
- Is there a new type of B2B initiative to be supported - e.g. automating the interaction between personnel
in addition to automation of the data exchanged between your and your suppliers' businesses?

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