Every business owner wants their company to be the best it can be.

And one way to ensure a business is indeed the best it can be, is to properly manage the vendors.

Vendors are the individuals and companies that provide supplies and services to a company. And vendor management refers to the process of researching and sourcing suppliers, getting quotes, negotiating contracts, developing relationships with vendors, evaluating the performance of the suppliers, and making payments.

Research and advisory leader Gartner defines vendor management as “a discipline that enables organizations to control costs, drive service excellence, and mitigate risks to gain increased value from their vendors throughout the deal life cycle.”

Gatekeeper, a next-generation supplier and contract management solution, describes vendor management as “the process by which relationships with your vendors, and the documentation that underpins them, are actively created, monitored and cultivated to ensure that yours and their business objectives are achieved.”

Establishing a vendor management process is the surest way to guarantee that vendors are meeting the needs of a company.

The benefits are numerous. They include:

• Reducing risks and supply chain disruptions
• Improving and measuring performance
• Reducing costs through negotiating better rates
• Building strong supplier relationships
• Increasing administrative efficiencies
• Accelerating the vendor onboarding process
• Protecting the brand
• Propelling service excellence

But how does a company that already has many vendors go about setting up such a system?

Velsoft’s latest courseware release, Vendor Management Essentials, can teach companies what they need to know. Learn about:

• Types of vendors and relationships with them
• Setting business goals related to vendors
• Developing key performance indicators
• Policy documents
• Vendor life cycles and managing them
• Assessing and selecting vendors
• Developing contracts
• Monitoring performance, including auditing, non-compliance and corrective actions

Trainers: Add Vendor Management Essentials to your offerings and help your clients make their companies the best they can be.