Imagine for a moment that you are a supplier, and you want to figure out how to do business with Cummins. Where do you start?
Excellent question! Until recently, there was no single, easy answer. Now there is; it’s Cummins’ new supplier portal: supplier.cummins.com
“Finding your way had been a little bit like groping along a wall in the dark. You might find your point of entry, or you might not,” noted Rebecca Speaker, head of Strategic Initiatives for Corporate Procurement. “Now, we have a communication channel that benefits both suppliers and the Company.”
The first phase that went live recently is a public view with access available to anyone with a web browser. It organizes Cummins’ values, mission, goals and business requirements under tabs that are clear and easy to navigate. In the near future, the purchasing web team will launch a secure, password-protected site for current suppliers and Cummins employees; this will be the doorway to applications, supplier profiles, payment status, engineering standards and other information essential to a strong supplier-customer relationship.
“We look forward to integrating a number of supplier-oriented resources for the supply base,” Speaker continued. “Our goal is to make doing business with Cummins easier for everyone. But we are also aware that careful development is essential to that goal, so we are taking our time with the intention of doing it right. When we launch the secure site to accompany the public view, we will have a portal that better represents a large, global technology company like Cummins.”