Study on Supplier Invoice Risk Management in a Global Supply Chain

Risk management has an essential strategic role and is directly linked to the companies' objectives. Having sustainable value but also quality assurance and customer satisfaction in mind, management teams had to find methods to identify, analyze and monitor the top impacting risks on the supply chain. The new economic and political climate has affected all major processes within the supply chain leading to high risks such as supply crises - paused or stopped production caused by delayed, incomplete or incorrect deliveries. These new risks led to focusing on supplier care and changes in the way companies interact with their suppliers but also called for understanding the important role of supply chain risk management. Risk management is a proactive process and can be applied both vertically (hierarchically) and horizontally for each process of the supply chain. Supplier invoice management is one of the top impacting processes affecting business with suppliers. In case invoices or merchandise do not correspond with the demand, the companies' electronic management systems prevent supplier invoices from payment leading to supplier dissatisfaction. This research is based are supply chain management literature and also an empirical study based on three surveys conducted by the authors. The objective of this paper is to highlight supplier invoice risk management as an important management tool and to present a conceptual end to end method for identifying, analyzing and managing all impacting risks in order to avoid supply crises and to improve business with the suppliers.