Procurement teams face increasing pressure to ensure supply continuity, reduce costs, and align with responsible sourcing goals.
But when disruptions hit, whether from inflation, geopolitical changes, or single-source dependencies, teams need to take proactive and data driven action.
Supplier.io has been helping organizations make informed sourcing decisions for over 20 years. Here are three steps our customers take to walk into their next business or category planning meeting with data and insights in hand.
1. Start by analyzing your current spend
The first step is understanding where you’re sourcing today. With Supplier.io’s Spend Analytics, you can break down spend by supplier type, category, business unit, or geography. This helps identify gaps or risks, such as categories with high supplier concentration or underrepresentation of small, local, or diverse businesses.
Armed with this data, sourcing teams can spot opportunities to strengthen resilience, uncover new potential, or meet internal goals.
2. Benchmark against your peers to uncover untapped sourcing potential
Next, compare your sourcing strategy to others in your industry. Supplier.io’s Benchmarking tool shows how your performance stacks up against peers and top-performing organizations.
This step highlights areas where you may be lagging, such as missed opportunities for small supplier engagement or overreliance on international vendors, and helps you prioritize categories for improvement.
It’s not just about benchmarking for the sake of it. It’s about identifying real sourcing opportunities backed by data. You can see exactly how your results would look if you spent at industry averages, and even get a list of suppliers your peers are already using.
3. Use Supplier Explorer to discover qualified alternate suppliers
With 1 click inside Benchmarking you’re taken to Supplier Explorer where you can further filter, investigate, and vet suppliers already being used by your peers. We have up to fifty unique data points about suppliers you can use to assess how well they might fit including industry experience, history, size, location, products, and more.
This tool enables you to:
- Find and vet suppliers that align with business and sourcing needs
- Identify viable local or nearshore options for critical categories
- Bring 10–20 high-quality supplier recommendations to business stakeholders in minutes
You’re no longer starting from scratch—you’re starting with industry and supplier intelligence.
Turn alternate sourcing into a strategic advantage
Organizations that proactively build alternate sourcing strategies are better prepared to:
- Navigate supply chain disruptions
- Improve cost control through local sourcing
- Enhance innovation with new supplier relationships
In fact, 82% of companies saw improved resilience and 77% achieved cost reductions through localization and alternate sourcing efforts.
Proactive sourcing is data-driven, scalable, and impactful
Procurement teams are evolving. According to the Hackett Group’s 2025 research, 50% of procurement leaders plan to improve reporting granularity, while 75% aim to enhance data integrity. These priorities reflect a broader shift: procurement’s role is expanding from tactical execution to strategic business enablement.
With Supplier.io, you can transform your sourcing strategy from reactive to proactive—while driving measurable business and community impact.
Ready to strengthen your sourcing strategy? Learn how Supplier.io can help you reduce risk, uncover opportunities, and build a more competitive and resilient supply chain – book a demo with one of our experts today!