Spring Cleaning

It is the time of year — the requests from supplier portals just keep rolling in, asking us to update our information in their systems. For the most part, that’s the only contact we have from some of the bigger potential clients we’ve been targeting. We all know the spiel when we meet with a supply chain or supplier diversity specialist. They want to know if your business is in their portal, if not, they ask you to register. We’ve been assured numerous times that their portal is their first stop when looking for new diverse suppliers. I’m sure it works that way for some industries, but that has never really been the case for ours.

So every year, we spend days updating the various supplier portals we’ve been asked to register ourselves in and as I worked on the third one of the week, I began to wonder if maybe it is time to do some spring cleaning.  How do you decide when your time could be better spent working on things for your current clients, potential clients with whom you have an active dialogue, and your business in general?  Is the decision based on how many years of requested updates, with no other contact? Or, do you remain optimistic that maybe this will be the year you get an invite to a meeting or bid? Where do you draw the line?  We’d love to hear what you think!