What is a Supplier Evaluation?
Supplier evaluation refers to the process of assessing and approving potential suppliers by quantitative and qualitative assessment. The purpose is to ensure a portfolio of best in class suppliers is available for use.
It is also a process applied to current suppliers in order to measure and monitor their performance for the purposes of reducing costs, mitigating risk and driving continuous improvement.
Approaches and Methods
There are different methods and approaches to carrying out a supplier assessment with emphasis on CSR practices. Some examples include questionnaires, scorecards, site visits and third-party standard certifications.
A number of organizations such as EcoVadis have developed assessment tools and methodologies to help companies perform supplier assessments. The objective of the EcoVadis supplier assessment is to assess the quality of a company’s CSR management system-through its policies, implementation measures and results.
The process captures and analyzes information and distills it into a scorecard with a Rating on a 0 to 100 scale.
Read more about why procurement organizations engage in sustainability assessments: Five Reasons Why Purchasers Are Engaging Suppliers in Sustainability Assessments