Improving supplier relationship management: a study of TT Chemicals Company

Abstract

Vietnam was the brightest point in the Southeast Asian area for the Paint & Coating and Printing ink industry, despite the fact that Vietnam's economy had a little decrease during the second wave COVID-19 in 2021 (1). Furthermore, Vietnam's Paint & Coating industry is expected to increase from 383 million USD in 2018 to 459 million USD in 2022. Due to the active expansion of the construction sector, the industry has shown consistent growth throughout the years (2). In addition, Asia Pacific, including Vietnam, dominated the printing inks market in 2021, accounting for 35.60 percent of total revenue, and is predicted to maintain its dominance from 2021 to 2028 (3). However, TT Chemicals, a SMEs chemical distributor in the Paint & Coating and Printing Ink industries in Vietnam, has reduced its profit in 2021 and is losing ground to competitors despite revenue growth. Through substantial research efforts, three possible problems that could lead to the undesirable consequence have been identified as (1) ineffective supplier relationship management (SRM), (2) weak skilled and qualified sales team and (3) ineffective cost control. Following the validation procedure, the first possible problem was identified as the main problem. After that, additional investigation was performed to identify three potential causes of the main problem, which are (1) lack of market and product development (MPD), (2) inefficient procure to payment process. Sub-causes are then generated for each of the potential causes. Finally, the root cause of the problem in supplier relationship management (SRM) was identified as a lack of market and product development (MPD). Two alternate solutions were presented to address this problem. Consequently, Alternative Solution #2 was chosen to create a thorough implementation action plan. Primary and secondary data were used alternately throughout this thesis to create sustainable the logic.