Vendor management today is not just about comparing prices and finding the supplier with the cheapest price for a product or service, it is ultimately about building better vendor relationships that will ultimately benefit both the parties. Vendor management process allows organizations to control costs, strengthen service, and reduce risk throughout outsourcing the processes to vendors while extracting the most value from the investment.

Vendor management process

For successful vendor management process, companies must take a strategic approach to build and maintain relationships with their best vendors. Good suppliers are hard to come by, so it’s important to nurture the relationships with the suppliers that companies don’t want to lose. Vendor management process is typically broken down into four main steps:

Establish business goals

Define the business goals clearly and be as specific as possible. In order to successfully undertake vendor management, you need to know exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve. Vendor management becomes easier where there are pre- defined performance parameters to compare.

Choose the best vendor

Companies will have to weigh the pros and cons of different vendors. Some questions to ask here include: Does the vendor have extensive experience? Are they stable? Have they worked in similar environments? Do they have standardized processes and provide economies of scale?

Manage vendors

This is the routine activity of monitoring performance and output. It’s the best way to make sure that the terms of the contract are being fulfilled. This step involves extensive communication to offer approvals, disapprovals, feedback, changes, and everything that is necessary to deepen the relationship.

Consistently meet goals

Companies aim to consistently meet their goals over the course of their relationship with the vendor. This means managing the vendor regularly to better influence and meet performance objectives on a regular basis.

Whether you’re managing 10 vendors or 1,000, SpendEdge can help you radically simplify how you track, manage, and pay your vendors. Request a demo to know more.