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The importance of building segments

As your supply chain grows, it becomes more complex, where you can end up with thousands of sub-contractors across multiple locations, working across multiple work categories. Keeping your lists of suppliers organised and up to date across your business is a time-consuming task.

To simplify managing your supply chain and make the most of the analytic and reporting features, you can build ‘segments’ to organise all your supply chain lists within the Constructionline platform. You can build as many segments as you require, based on projects, work categories, locations or frameworks, depending on how your business likes to organise your supply chain lists.

Here is a quick walk-through video to help you get started to build your segments:

Here is a step-by-step guide to set up your segments:

Click ‘Manage Supply Chain’ in the main navigation menu on the left.
Select ‘Supply Chain’
Select ‘Create New Segment’
Name your segment list something unique and recognisable to your business and your suppliers such as project name, location and/or work category

Select Segment Type from the dropdown menu
Depending on the type of segment selected you may be able to add in the location, where you enter the postcode.
Give more context around your segment, what it is for, who it includes etc
In the Compliance Policy dropdown menu, set the compliance level you need suppliers to meet for that project to be in that segment.
If you wish suppliers to see the segment, they have been added to so they are aware of your compliance policy, select the ‘Make Segment visible to suppliers’ tick box.
If you wish to share the segment with different divisions within your own organisation, select the ‘Share Segment’ tick box so other users in other areas of the business can refer to the segment list.
Click ‘ADD’ to save the segment and then ‘CONFIRM’

Next, you can add Suppliers to your new Segment:

Select the segment you wish to add suppliers to
Select ‘Add Suppliers’
Choose a segment stage for your supplier as ‘Approved’ or ‘Not Approved’ for that individual supplier within that specific segment.

Use the search bar to search and find the supplier business name
Then select the correct supplier from the list and click ‘ADD’ to add them to the segment.
To remove suppliers from the segment, select ‘REMOVE’
Alternatively, you can tick multiple suppliers to remove them or assign the suppliers to a stage

When viewing your segment lists, you will be able to see:

The segment name
Segment Type
When the segment was created
The Status of your segment
How many suppliers are within the segment
If the segment is visible to your suppliers
If the segment is shared within your organisation

To manage an existing Segment, select ‘VIEW’

To edit the Segment, select ‘EDIT’

Here you can change the name, segment type, overview, compliance policy, visibility to suppliers, and whether you wish to share the segment with the rest of your organisation.

Within a segment, you have Notifications

Notifications allow you to manage preferences for your segment notifications for instant alerts and daily summaries on any changes within your supply chain you wish to be notified for.

Best Practice Tips

To make managing your supply chain lists in segments easier, here are some top tips:

Make sure you name your segments with a unique name that is consistent in format with the rest of your organisation so that when you share it with other divisions or the rest of your team, they will be able to find it easily.

Make your segment visible to your suppliers, so they are aware of your compliance policy and can ensure that they meet your requirements to work with you.

Regularly update your suppliers in your segments, remove those you no longer work with, and update their status if they are approved or not approved.

Set your notifications for your segments. You can choose between receiving instant alerts or receive a daily report on different compliance issues depending on what is most important to you for that segment.

Set the compliance policy for each segment so that it is easier to monitor the level of compliance within your different segments on the analytics dashboard.

Key Benefits

Keeping your supply chain more organised
Staying on top of compliance within your different segments
Ability to run reports and see analytics on different segment lists
Making it easier to keep your supply chain list current and up to date · See segment lists for suppliers across your organisation
Managing compliance policies across your segments
Get notified of changes with your suppliers within your segments such as if their insurance has become invalid or details have been updated

Blog Buyers

The importance of building segments

Here is a quick walk-through video to help you get started to build your segments:

Here is a step-by-step guide to set up your segments:

When viewing your segment lists, you will be able to see:

To manage an existing Segment, select ‘VIEW’

Best Practice Tips

Key Benefits

Related case studies

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VINCI Construction UK

Wates Group