• small and mid-size organizations
• supplier evaluation
• supplier management framework

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that supply chains can break overnight. Add geopolitical conflicts to the mix, and the cost of poor supplier monitoring isn’t just financial—it’s existential.

In today´s world, where pandemics and national conflicts are creating tensions in supply chains, where borders closes and factories are shut down, the organizations have learned that one single weak link can pause their entire operation. The geopolitical tensions and wars amplify this vulnerability in globalized and increasingly complex supply chains, turning the supplier management from a routine operational function to a strategic advantage (adapted Canwat, 2024). The risk is for all size of organizations. During the latest pandemic, 2020-2022 there were a severe problem for example with semiconductor manufacturing, and big companies like Ford Motor Company and Toyota suffered from supply chain disruptions (Quinn, 2025).

For a small and mid-sized companies, the stakes are even higher. They usually rely on handful of critical suppliers and one single disruption – whether caused by pandemic, geopolitical conflict, or raw material shortage, can halt the production and jeopardize customer commitments. Smaller size organisations, often lack the dedicated resources and advanced digital tools for supplier monitoring that larger organizations have. As a result, they face critical decisions that can significantly impact product quality, depending on supplier performance. How? Poor supplier selection can introduce delays, poor quality and therefore waste, and a reputation risk. Interruption in supplier´s factory will impact to deliveries and if no back up supplier or longer period safety stocks in warehouses, the organization will face delays. (Taherdoost & Brard, 2019, p. 1024)

Regular, standardized performance evaluations strengthen supplier relationships and enables initiative-taking actions—whether it is implementing improvement plans, rewarding excellence, or enforcing penalties when needed. This and the observation that supplier management is a key factor for organizational growth, there is a need for structured, yet practical framework, which enables systematic supplier evaluation without excessive complexity or costs. (Niemi, 2025)

From Theory to Practice: Designing a Framework for Real-World Impact

Niemi (2025), builds on these principles, through a development project for a case company, aiming at improving supplier monitoring by redesigning the supplier evaluation tool and its supporting supplier management framework. The outcome is a scalable supplier evaluation tool and new proposal of supplier monitoring framework.

Development process: Building the foundation

The development begins by creating a supplier KPI pool – supplier key performance indicators; structured list of measurable indicators for performance assessment – by literature review. The indicators are listed and grouped into practical categories:

• quality
• delivery
• price
• service
• risks
• manufacturing
• research and development
• Environment, health, safety (EHS) & sustainability,

which forms the backbone of the supplier evaluation tool development.

Designing for reality: Simplicity, Modularity, and Scalability

A key insight during the tool development is that the supplier evaluation system can quickly become too time-consuming and complex. Especially for small and mid-size organizations, that have limited resources, monitoring and focusing on few high-impact KPIs ensures efficient monitoring, countering to this:

• The template is built based on the KPI categories identified from the supplier KPI pool, with a function allowing new parameters to be added later, without overcomplicating the process.
• The evaluation weighing factors, are defined with the help of the organization, to reflect the company´s strategic priorities.
• The tool is built in simplified format, with scoring formulas, which can be modified later, when more resources for supplier monitoring are gained.
• The tool is created in Microsoft excel, allowing the migration to SharePoint and Power BI in future.

The redesigned evaluation tool supports ongoing monitoring, enables targeted improvement plans, and facilitates both penalties and rewards where appropriate, strengthening supplier relationship.

A Novel Framework: Integrating Project Management and Supplier Management

The thesis introduces a novel, structured, stepwise framework that applies project management principle— stage-gates process, documented milestones, and decision points—to supplier onboarding and ongoing evaluation. The new framework follows and documents the steps of the supplier, through the full supplier lifecycle: from the introduction of the supplier, through the approval process into supplier monitoring phase. If a supplier fails to meet predefined criteria, the process can be paused or terminated, and thereby preventing unnecessary resource allocation. When having all paused and terminated suppliers recorded and documented, can give valuable pre-information if same supplier is planned to be introduced later in future.

By merging these disciplines, the framework delivers:

• Standardization: Different supplier segments have different management processes.
• Transparency: Clear criteria, documented decisions, and traceable evaluation steps.
• Consistency: Standardized assessments across suppliers and periods.
• Strategic Control: Decision gates aligned with organizational goals and risk tolerance.
• Adaptability: Scalable design suitable for small and medium size organizations.

Key takeaway

By defining clear methodological steps for implementation, the study reveals a practical solution that transform supplier evaluation into a systematic, value-adding process, and offers a practical and adaptable solution for small and even mid-size organizations, seeking to improve their supplier evaluation and monitoring practises.

Reference:

Canwat, V. (2024). COVID‑19‑related supply chain disruptions: Resilience and vulnerability of micro, small and medium enterprises. Cogent Business & Management, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2315691

Niemi, T., (2025). Effect of supplier KPI identification to supplier management framework– Case study, for a small size company. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025121335890

Microsoft. (2025). Graph. [Stock image]. Microsoft Word.

Quinn, R. (2025, November 11). Why supply chain strategy is becoming a board-level issue [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-supply-chain-strategy-becoming-board-level-issue-robert-quinn-3kahc/

Taherdoost, H., & Brard, A. (2019). Analyzing the Process of Supplier Selection Criteria and Methods, Procedia Manufacturing, 32, 1024-1034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2019.02.317