Vendor management is the foundation of service integration and management. It ensures that all suppliers are managed to deliver and perform in the way that they have been contracted to. It is a periodic check on suppliers within the strategic category and involves a series of processes and tools designed to ensure that your suppliers stay true to their deliverables.

​

Vendor management is the foundation of service integration and management. Vendor Management is the process of identifying significant IT vendors that contribute to the delivery of a service to your organization that supports the organisations ecosystem (including customers and channels). The process also includes keeping your organization on track and organised when it comes to the management and integration of all the organisation’s vendors.

​

It also ensures that all suppliers are managed to deliver and perform in the way that they have been contracted to. It is a periodic check on suppliers within the strategic category and involves a series of processes and tools designed to ensure that your suppliers stay true to their deliverables.

 

Key Areas of vendor management: 

​

1. Selecting vendors - helps analyze the vetting and selecting of the right vendors for the service you need.

2. Keeping your vendors organised - helps manage the third-party relationship including contracts, service level agreements, reports (including business continuity plans, disaster recovery plans etc.)

3. Creating a vendor strategy – uses the vendor plan to understanding channel management trends , reduce duplicated services, and streamline all processes.

 

Mitigating vendor risk -  creates a risk “blueprint”, reducing key ongoing issues and pinpointing any service gaps early.

 

Developing your Vendor Management Strategy

​

• Review existing vendor plans and develop an initial updated strategy

• Discover all key vendor’s strategies

• Create a shared vision for the optimum relationship.

• Plan and deploy clear Governance structures and processes.

• Review all historical data - business model, spend, demand, trends.

• Develop new plans - road maps, expected demand, options, any variance to financial outcomes.

• Develop agreed Metrics, Scorecards, SLAs, SLOs.

• Simplify and standardise contracts structures

 

 In summary, a Vendor Management Plan is made up of strategic sourcing, supplier management, contract management solutions, operational procurement and supplier performance and the process works better when they are all integrated as a single process.