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Is your company's database reactive or proactive?

One of the key responsibilities of a Vendor Manager is to manage their database. The database is composed of thousands of profiles, one for each supplier. Each profile will contain information such as the supplier’s contact details, services, rates, competencies, performance, tasks performed and all the paperwork required. 

Being the main point of reference for project managers when assigning work, the information within the database must be as up to date and accurate as possible. This way, projects can be assigned to suitable suppliers, and Vendor Managers can easily spot any supplier gaps. 

The database is constantly changing, not only as suppliers evolve, but also as client’s requirements change. From my experience, the database must be flexible in order to suit any unexpected projects and new clients. This is where you can test whether your database, and by extension, your Vendor Management team, is “proactive” or “reactive”. 

A reactive database can be defined as a database that only has what your current clients order on a regular basis; anything that deviates from these projects has to be recruited from outside the database or outsourced to another company. This puts the Vendor Management team under a lot of pressure, and could potentially compromise the quality of these projects.

A proactive database, on the other hand, contains suppliers that may not be required as often, but that offer services that can be useful for specific ad hoc projects. Having this additional group of suppliers also gives the company the advantage of being able to sell additional services and enter new markets. The Vendor Management team will be continuously recruiting, anticipating the client’s needs in sync with the company’s objectives. 

In order to achieve a proactive database, the team must create short-term and long-term recruitment strategies to bridge the gap between the current weaknesses of the database and the ideal characteristics of the future database. 

Some companies survive with a reactive database because a proactive one requires a budget and time investment that the company cannot afford. However, investing in a proactive database and a good Vendor Management team can bring numerous benefits to the company’s performance in the long term.

By Markus Spiske

 

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