Vendor Lifecycle Management (VLM) involves the strategic oversight and coordination of a business’s relationships with the vendors it uses to obtain products and services. VLM covers such relationships from initiation, through operation, to termination and sometimes beyond. The primary goal of VLM is to deliver maximum value from as many vendors as possible, while minimising the associated risks and optimising the operational efficiency of dealing with them. Like any business practice, VLM typically starts small and hopefully evolves in lockstep with business growth, to deliver increased fu ..read more

Managing vendors and contracts has emerged as a key aspect of financial strategy for businesses in today's complex economic environment. It is increasingly clear that poor vendor and contract lifecycle management can lead to substantial financial losses.  The World Commerce and Contracting Association states that contract erosion, which is the value lost in contracting that directly impacts revenue figures is on average 8.6%. CFOs and Procurement teams can stop bleeding cash through their vendors by implementing Vendor and Contract Lifecycle Management (VCLM) best practices. That’s wha ..read more

Effective vendor management is the cornerstone of successful procurement. Its purpose is to help businesses maintain cost efficiency, improve quality control, build strong relationships with vendors and minimise any risks they introduce. And as supply chains begin to sprawl, regulations increase and businesses face more ethical expectations from customers, the way vendor management is done needs to change. Businesses need to use a vendor management system (VMS) rather than manual processes to get ahead. Let's get into: What is a vendor management system? Why businesses need a vendor manage ..read more

Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is a structured approach to managing and continually improving your business’s interactions with external vendors that supply goods and services to you. Despite the advancements in technology, some businesses still rely on manual, traditional methods for managing these relationships. This approach, often characterised by scattered data, lack of real-time visibility, and reliance on outdated communication methods, can lead to significant challenges. In regulated industries, where compliance, data integrity, and operational reliability are paramount, the draw ..read more

Understanding your vendor base is incredibly powerful. Your vendor base is all approved vendors you can use to meet your business requirements. You may have contracts with them or they might be there, ready to be used as a risk mitigation play, to build resilience. I have three relationships that I’ve continuously tracked in my vendor base - regardless of the role or industry I was operating in - to ensure I had visibility of what was happening here. By tracking vendor relationships like this, you will build up a picture of risk and spend that you can use to improve elements such as: Risk Man ..read more

When working with a vendor, evaluating their financial stability is essential. This ensures they can fulfil their obligations and provide the services or products they promise. The due diligence process is necessary to assess a vendor’s financial stability before making contractual commitments. In this article, we’ll take a look at when you should assess a vendor’s financial stability, why you should do it and how using vendor and contract management software can help you. When should you assess a vendor’s financial stability? Financial stability is usually assessed during the Vendor Onboardin ..read more

As businesses face macro events including recessions, supply chain disruption and evolving regulations, we predict that businesses of all sizes will be focusing on resilience, recession-proofing and risk mitigation throughout 2023. Businesses that double down on improving their processes, in particular moving from manual to automated, are those who will navigate the year most successfully. Let’s take a look at these trends in more detail and explore how to build robust contract and vendor management approaches to keep your business protected, profitable and compliant. 1. Resilient businesses w ..read more

If your business is using NetSuite and a separate vendor management solution, the challenges it experiences are likely to mirror those of businesses with a lower level of maturity. Contracts are naturally collaborative and businesses often compensate for this by giving each department technology best suited to their needs. However, tech-stacks can quickly sprawl without each platform working in sync with the other. If your business is linking its key finance and vendor software using an API build rather than a native integration, stakeholders may be: Inputting data twice into different system ..read more

The recessions hitting nations across the globe are causing disruption. Companies are freezing purchases, reducing the speed at which they implement new technology, and positions of leverage are changing in the supply chain. The invasion of Ukraine, frequent cyber attacks, general inflation and the continued impact of Covid are combining to make the the business environment incredibly challenging. The challenges Procurement, Finance, and Legal teams face are fierce. They are responsible for ensuring that the business is protected from risk, with vendor and contract management in place. As ..read more

The number of active vendors in most organisations means that it is challenging, if not impossible, to effectively monitor them all. Segmenting vendors in a way that highlights those that are critical to your business paves the way to track their performance. The main objective of vendor performance management (VPM) is to achieve the highest level of reliability, quality and performance from key vendors while limiting risk. "Relationships with strategic vendors are increasingly key to business performance." - Gartner   What is vendor performance management? Vendor performance management ..read more