If you are responsible for 3rd party vendors you know how much work it can be dealing with them day to day.
This includes fielding sales calls, dealing with service issues, contract negotiations and the most dreaded of all – invoice review and approvals. We all know how often invoices are wrong and need to be sent back for correction and another review. Quite often this menial work gets in the way of performance measurement and true vendor partnering work – which drives the most value.
It amazes me how much tactical, vendor related work companies retain, when they could utilize experts in managing vendors and related non strategic activities. Often obtaining more value.
So it boggles my mind when companies don’t consider using 3rd parties who specialize in vendor management and invoice consolidation to manage this workload on their behalf. In addition to helping them rationalize their vendor base to the right level based on the actual need. In some cases the vendors even fund this to receive better payment terms and more share in potential sales.
If you are buried in vendors and the workload that comes with them I would suggest taking a hard look at a 3rd party to help you. Retain the strategic and ditch the tactical.
