As anyone who reads my purchasing articles knows, I am very big on good vendor relationship management. For the long-term success of an organization, you must have a focus on vendor relationship management with your key vendors.<\/p>\n
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But sometimes the connotation of vendor relationship management doesn\u2019t sit well with me.<\/p>\n
The way \u201cvendor relationship management\u201d is used by some people, it connotes that 100% of the health of the relationship is dependent on the buyer. I disagree.<\/p>\n
As a result of this perception of vendor relationship management, buyers often waste time developing relationships with substandard vendors. In a lot of these cases, those buyers need to spend time finding a vendor that can perform. Managing a relationship with a more competent vendor is ultimately more productive.<\/p>\n
Here are a couple of signs that attempting to manage a vendor relationship may be less desirable than sourcing for a new vendor:<\/p>\n
1. The vendor calls you way too often during the sales process, but after you give that vendor the order, you can\u2019t get anyone to deliver what was promised or communicate progress.<\/p>\n
2. The vendor places you on less of a priority than its other customers. Look, if you\u2019re going to give me less responsive service than your other customers, you should be charging me a \u201clower priority rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. The vendor responds only when you get tough. When something isn\u2019t going right with a vendor, I always communicate cordially at first. If that doesn\u2019t work, then I get tough. Unfortunately, especially during a healthy economic time, vendors are busy and service levels decline. But it drives me crazy when the only thing that vendors will respond to is tough talk. But you gotta do what works. If nice, polite requests don\u2019t get the job done, you have to remember your obligation to your company and do whatever works.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong. I don\u2019t advocate always being tough. And I don\u2019t dismiss the notion that vendor relationship management should be a part of every purchasing department\u2019s repertoire. But sometimes, it makes sense to source old-school style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As anyone who reads my purchasing articles knows, I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n