Session 6 - Onboarding processes
Session 5 - Feedback and Communication
It was great to be able to see some familiar faces on this month's meet-up. We are creating a little networking group and it is great to share ideas and experiences together.
The main topic we discussed was, how do you usually give feedback to suppliers, how often and what kind of feedback is it?
Most vendor managers share feedback via email and/or meetings such as business reviews. It became clear from the conversation that companies try to send feedback to their suppliers on a project to project basis and a monthly basis, as it is often used as a tool for improving engagement and developing the relationship.
The type of feedback that it is shared with suppliers is often related to the quality of the translation and the performance of the supplier during a job (communication, delays, adherence to instructions, etc).
There is a big difference if the company has a separate QA team who usually deals with all the quality-related feedback, or if the company leaves this task to their vendor management team. If your company is structured with a VM and QA team, it is possible that some information might get lost in between the two teams. If your company uses the later, then the vendor manager would have to work closely with PMs to ensure information is shared within the company and passed on objectively to the supplier.
Unfortunately, more negative feedback is shared with suppliers than positive feedback. Although, most vendor managers try to balance good news and bad news when possible: some have bonus schemes like a "Translator of the Month" award, others conduct interviews and create certificates to recognise a job well done.
Session 4 - Recruitment
During July’s session we talked about recruitment. This session was a bit different as we had many new vendor managers joining the meet-up. Some of them had experience in the language services industry already, but were new to the role of vendor management. I think networking is one of the best ways to learn about a profession and it gives you an insight formal education might not be able to provide.
Where and how do you find your vendors? A recent pool done in LinkedIn showed that Proz.com and LinkedIn were the most used platforms when looking for new vendors. However, most of the vendor managers agreed that referrals and recommendation is the best way to find trustworthy and reliable vendors when you don’t have the time to filter through dozens of applications.
Key vendors of your company can provide referrals to colleagues they know and trust and vendor managers trust their judgement.
Another platform where vendor managers turn to look for new vendors is social media, primarily Facebook groups.
It was very interesting hearing from a translator on how they keep their Proz.com profile up-to-date and it is their main platform to find new clients. Moreover, it is their first point of reference when checking a client’s trustworthiness (Blueboard).
We also discussed the difference between posting an advert or contacting vendors one by one. An advert has the potential to reach out to many more vendors and create a larger pool of applications to choose from, but it can take a lot of time to go through all of the profiles and choose the best suited vendors for your vacancy. On the other hand, contacting vendors one by one can be time consuming at first, but you have the assurance that they will fit your company’s requirements and are potentially suitable.
We even talked about how this is the time to create a new platform, something like a Proz.com 0.2, that is more suited to vendor managers and can be used as a networking platform for companies and vendors.
Our next topic was related to the ISO standard 17100, has it changed the recruitment and selection process in your company? Most of the vendor managers agreed that it didn’t as they started their role once the ISO was already implemented or their company’s requirements were similar to the ones the ISO states.
Some companies have all their vendors be compliant in order to collaborate in any job together and some others have two different databases, one with ISO compliant vendors and another one for non-ISO compliant vendors to use in different projects.
Session 3 - Vendor Management in the industry
This time, we changed the timing of the TVM Group meet-up to earlier in the day for most and it really made a difference. Again, we were joined by people from all over the world working in different roles such as freelance translator, business developers and project managers. Although there were some familiar faces, many new people joined the call, what a treat!
During this session, we talked about the role of VM in the industry and how it can influence the direction the company takes, a topic suggested by one of the attendees.
We unpacked and touched on so many points related to this topic… but I will try to summarise it the best I can :)
First, we talked about the different ways VM teams are organised in different companies. Some (usually bigger ones) might have the VM team divided by clients or languages, even responsibilities, having an onboarding VM team versus a recruiting VM team; while others, ensure each VM knows a bit about all the accounts and languages.
Unfortunately, many teams consist of one person only, as companies are not willing to invest enough in their VM function. Therefore, the actuality of the industry is that VM is simply a support team for the Operation and Sales teams in most instances.
Luckily, most people in the call agreed this is a generalised bad practise in the industry and something we want to change moving forward. The VM team members should not be seen as supporters but as enablers, making it a core function within the company.
Then, we moved on to the topic of how having an unprepared VM team could mean loss of potential new vendors and a bad reputation in the industry, as they are the main point of contact for vendors and also, work on building a long lasting relationship with them.
We also talked about the different ways the VM team works with other teams in the company and how sometimes it can be misunderstood by upper management. For some companies, the PM team acts as an internal client for the VM team, and we considered how this view widens the gap between both teams instead of promoting cooperation. This is probably done to ensure there are targets that measure every teams’ performance, but does it help the relationship between the teams?
And this brought us to our final topic, what is your take on hybrid roles? For example when a PM does recruitment or a VM helps allocating projects. The jury is still out!
Share your views in the comments! :)
Links that came up in the discussion:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nimdzi_challenges-of-hiring-global-sales-team-members-activity-6810979226750214144-zQIK
https://www.gala-global.org/events/events-calendar/invisible-colleagues-vendor-management-story
https://www.nimdzi.com/book/
As you might have guessed, in my opinion, the database is the base that determines the direction of the company, so the VM team, being the most knowledgeable about the database’s content, should be able to influence the company’s present and future endeavours.
Session 2 - Supplier Relationship
Around 30 people were able to make it to the second meet-up of the Translation Vendor Management group. Amazing! It was very interesting to have vendor managers on the call, but also, business developers, project managers and company owners who want to learn more about VM and understand the true potential of our role.
During this session, we talked about relationships and the different ways that companies interact with vendors already in their databases.
After a quick round of presenting ourselves, we started talking about the different names that vendor management departments have in each company. It was quite evenly spread between Vendor/Resource Manager, Supplier/Supply Chain Manager, Talent manager and others, like Community Manager.
I mentioned this very interesting article that appeared a few years ago about the different names the same role can have in the language services industry. Check it out here!
However, does it actually make a difference to the company-supplier relationship? Opinions were divided. Some companies do try to pick job titles that convey their approach to the relationship with suppliers, and others, just go with the flow of what is happening in the industry.
We all agreed that nowadays, it is very important to build HUMAN relationships between companies and suppliers to ensure a successful collaboration. Getting the job done is not enough, and companies need a VM department to ensure relationships with suppliers are built and developed. Because after all, as Alaina Brantner wrote “the translation product will only be as good as the translator who provides the target content” and we are the ones finding that translator.
We also mentioned a shift from older generations of suppliers to the newcomers, in terms of engagement with their clients. They want to become part of the team, through social media engagement, regular phone calls, Skype messaging, etc.
This change has relaxed the strictness of some companies’ secrecy when it comes to the end client knowing the name of the suppliers working on their projects and also, the referring of suppliers from one company to another. Good Vibes All Round!
The value of a company as seen from the end client’ point of view has to be bigger than just their suppliers to succeed in the industry long-term. Moreover, cooperation between the end client and the suppliers should be encouraged as it benefits the outcome of any project.
This tied in with the different ways companies engage with suppliers at the moment. The industry is still evolving and adapting to all the different technologies available and so does the way companies engage with their suppliers. (And before you ask, yes, regular collaboration/work with the supplier is part of building a relationship.)
From the good old newsletter and certificates of achievement to the more advanced webinar series, mentorship opportunities and even meet-ups just like this one!
In my opinion, it all boils down to the investment that the company wants to make in their VM department. If the VM department is seen only as a support function to other teams, or if it is seen as a core value of the company.
And this is where we start our revolution, showing everyone in the language services industry how crucial our role is within the company and between us, sharing best practices that improve the industry as a whole.
Session 1 - Vendor Management
A few of us came together to talk about the value of networking and the role of vendor management in the translation industry.
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