New disruptions might push supply chains to their breaking point without immediate foundational improvements

TORONTO, CANADA, March 18, 2021: The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare widespread problems with supplier information on a global scale. While many procurement leaders had initially vowed to invest in supply chain resiliency, almost a year later, procurement leaders are still grappling with a cascade of issues surrounding poor supplier information. In fact, the 2021 Supplier Information Study, commissioned by supplier intelligence platform, Tealbook, revealed that 72% of procurement leaders are very concerned that their supplier intelligence has still not improved to crisis-proof supply chains.

"COVID-19 was a wake-up call to organizations around the world. Without a solid data foundation in place, the next big disruption could be even more disastrous for supply chains," said Stephany Lapierre, CEO of Tealbook. "Access to up-to-date supplier data will afford companies the agility necessary to weather future disruptions, but also to make the most of supplier innovations in a rapidly evolving landscape."

The survey confirmed that agility was of utmost importance to procurement organizations, with 96% of procurement professionals saying that agility is even more important than cost savings for their companies' bottom line. However, at a time when organizations need the ability to pivot and respond to disruptions, 57% of procurement leaders reported that they are still relying on antiquated, manual data entry; compounding the time and resources to update supplier information. Leaders also cited secondary concerns about their lack of a data foundation, including missing out on innovation (30%), falling behind the competition (25%) and not being able to determine ROI (22%). This inability to be agile is compounded by the cost of adding a single supplier record, which procurement leaders estimated to be $2431. Perhaps most alarmingly, a third of procurement leaders (33%) admit they have no way of knowing how much a supplier record costs.

In short, there are a staggering number of critical issues that organizations are facing as a result of inadequate supplier data. Not only did 41% of procurement leaders find their supplier data inadequate during the COVID-19 pandemic, a concerning 26% found it mostly or completely inadequate, reflecting a data foundation that's nowhere near strong enough to stand up to current or future supply chain disruptions.


Methodology
The Tealbook Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research among 250 Procurement and Sourcing Executives director-level or above at companies with $200 million or more in annual revenue.

About Tealbook
Tealbook is a supplier intelligence platform with the power to revolutionize the way buyers obtain supplier data. By using Tealbook, our customers have the data they need to make critical decisions, resulting in empowered and transformative procurement strategies. By leveraging machine learning and AI, Tealbook is introducing ease and transparency to the supply chain ecosystem. In addition, Tealbook provides a data foundation that can be leveraged by other eProcurement solutions to ensure these larger investments are successful. Tealbook has been adopted by Fortune 100 companies across multiple sectors and is the winner of many prestigious awards including Spend Matter 50 Vendors to Watch, Gartner's Cool Vendor, CIX Most Innovative Company and Most Upside Potential by C100. Tealbook's mission is to deliver a ‘Trusted Source of Supplier Data' to an ever-growing procurement space. For more information, visit www.tealbook.com.