VMO because –

One size doesn’t fit all

Each company has their unique needs which may be different from that of other companies. This is the reason no two vendors are similar and therefore sometimes making an attempt to force a relationship with a vendor which contrasts one’s company culture, volume can be like trying to fit a square peg in round hole.

There is no denying to the fact that organizing one’s vendors can save a considerable amount of money, but not every vendor or deal gets same amount of attention from the vendor management office. The aim is to allot resources to the relationships that have major impact on enterprise strategy.

It’s necessary to first know what one is looking for in a vendor. Then weigh the vendors depending on the most crucial things, things which fall into tie breaker category. Having a clear vision how the vendor would be selected saves a lot of guesswork and some serious headaches.

Fix a target and then make a list. This would give a clear picture of how much a vendor needs to deliver in a period. Keep a track of all the past relationships, which vendor performed extremely well and which vendor disappointed.

Having a good vendor management system in place is not a simple process. It is a continuous process of maintaining communication with vendors, so by knowing and communicating one’s expectations to supplier one can lessen the possibility of misunderstanding and problem in supply. By having a good vendor management, a company will be in a position to be successful.

IT sourcing is not “buying toilet paper”

Vendor management is a complex task. It has a wide range of influence on the business. Maintaining good relationships with the existing vendors’ means on-time and efficient delivery.  On the other hand, poor vendor management system can lead to bottle-necking and other inefficiencies. Vendor management comes down to a lot more than simply trying to haggle for the lowest price. Enterprises that have a formal vendor management group clearly gain both monetary and strategic advantages.

Communicating with vendors is just as important as communicating with customers. Having proper communication with vendors builds a win-win relationship with vendors as it leads to increased efficiency, reduced costs, better customer service and more over it builds trust amongst two parties.

Gone are the days when organizations focused on price, without understanding the underlying technology issues that affects IT’s ability to serve business needs. Today, large organizations need vendor management because of their scale.

Homeshoring

A number of companies are turning to a new method to meet call center challenges – getting workers to handle calls from their homes.

“Homeshoring” or “Homesourcing” in certain situations can boost productivity while cutting costs. This practice also can avoid a potential pitfall of sending such work overseas.

Companies are turning to homeshoring in response to call center challenges such as the need for superior agent quality, frequent turnover and the seasonal nature of the business. Alpine Access, Aspect Communications, IntelliCare, West, Willow CSN and Working Solutions are companies with “home-based sourcing methods and strategies,”

A number of companies in the technology industry are giving workers more flexibility in the way they do their jobs, including the option of working from home. There are challenges involved in telecommuting arrangements, including data security risks. Also, home workers can feel alienated. But homeshoring can help both agents and companies.

Accessing high-quality agents is not limited to those within commuting distance, and agents can be contacted when needed instead of occupying call centers during periods of very little call activity.

So, the next customer service agent you get on the phone may be sitting in slippers and a bathrobe.

Road to Success – Strategic Sourcing

No sooner did the smart organizations thought they had squeezed the last ounce of savings from their supply bases, enlightened purchasing and supply organizations were already saving even more by focusing more on process than function. New-style purchasing departments lead their organizations to join with suppliers to spur innovation, apply joint expertise to product development, and create genuine supply advantage.

In the once mundane world of hard-nosed negotiations aimed at reducing costs, managing supplier relationships, and buying everything from paper clips to private planes, “those buyers down in purchasing” have traditionally been a minor blip on the CEO radar screen. Not anymore.

Strategic Sourcing goes well beyond cutting costs. It can have a profound impact on a company’s financials and can strongly influence the purchasing and procurement processes. Strategic Sourcing is defined as the process of evaluating, selecting and aligning with suppliers or consortium of suppliers to achieve operational improvements in support of an organization’s strategic objectives.

An organization selects its suppliers based on their ability to support and assist in improving a process, providing a product/service at a lower total cost, or offering a better product/service that helps to differentiate.

It has been discovered by executives that suppliers can be untapped resources in a number of areas because they often have more to offer than a specific product or service. As expert providers to specific industries, suppliers have insights, competencies and expertise in areas that the companies which employ them may not have. Companies have begun to rely heavily on this input. Other contributions from suppliers may include marketing concepts, technology pursuits, or creative financing. Company executives should meet frequently with executives from strategic suppliers to discuss possible new products or markets and other mutually beneficial strategies. Suppliers may also offer valuable input to corporate objectives and issues.

Although this process requires an up-front investment in time, money and effort, the downstream benefits will be significant in terms of the alignment of the stakeholders, the quality of the transition and transformation programs, the robustness of the business case and the potential for success throughout the life-cycle of the contract.

Remember: Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail!

Going for a Generalist

After knowing the difference between specialists and generalists and benefits of generalists, one would probably want to know if it’s the right choice to go for a generalist. Before rushing out to hire a technical team member, it’s crucial to know whether working with a jack of all trades techie is truly the best option for one’s current project or situation.

Each business owner needs a different type of support based on their goals. Ultimately, they want (and need) to receive the support that is right for them and right for their project.

How would it feel to completely focus on your work, relaxed in knowing that your technical support team is highly qualified, competent and efficient at managing the tasks and systems of your online business.

If you are launching multiple projects or service offers in the coming year AND are doing most of the project management yourself, then working with a technical support professional will be of great benefit to you. You’ll achieve a better quality product or service for your clients because you won’t be spending your own time on managing the technical stuff.

Maybe you only have one or two projects upcoming for your business in the next several months, but they’re going to be evergreen offers and you don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel the next time around because it wasn’t done right the first time. By working with the right tech support professional, you can feel secure and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that your project is being done right the first time.

If technical details, website building, website maintenance, email campaigns, shopping carts, affiliate programs and product launch campaigns aren’t your favorite things to manage, and all those moving parts are giving you a massive headache, it may be time to get relief. Especially if you don’t have any support right now, finding the right person can feel like Christmas morning.

Going for a generalist helps you find relief, enjoy your online business making more money and launching more awesome stuff with less stress.

Jack-of-All

Since years we are under an impression that one should find a small, niche market for their products or that you should target a very well-defined niche of people with your services has been drilled into our heads by our ancestors and business coaches. In fact, not just market our businesses to a particular niche, we are also told to drill down even further and create specific products and services for very tiny subsets of our niche.

While we are aware that it’s a good thing to be targeted and specialized in our respective marketplaces so that we will be seen as the go-to leader in our microniche, the fact that there is need for businesses that serve the larger market or macroniche remains.

Consider this: You are working with a client to organize and execute a launch for their business. While discussing you are told that they have another project where they need help. This second project is comparatively simpler but the client says “I’m not sure if you can do this for me, so perhaps you can recommend someone who specializes in this type of work.”

This is a perfect example of how we’ve become so focused on specialization and microniching that we immediately jump to the conclusion that we need to hire different specialists to handle different areas of our businesses for us.

A jack of all trades techie, as the name implies, has the knowledge, skill and experience to handle all or nearly all technical stuff. This unique species of techie is actually not a new phenomenon; they’ve been around for decades. In recent years, however, these generalists have become a rarity precisely because we’ve all been trained to think that we should only work with specialists. However, when you do find a techie generalist, you’ll discover that they can be a one-stop shop for all of your tech support needs.

Now that we understand what jack of all trades techie is, next question likely to arise is “Should I work with a specialist techie or a generalist techie?” The answer follows in the next post.

Never say never!

Companies have continued to adopt “best of breed” approaches to outsourcing transactions. They are now seeking to execute multi-sourcing transactions across a number of service providers, each provider bringing its own specific experience and knowledge to the table.

This means that companies need to pay greater attention to how they integrate services across multiple service providers — and, in some instances, across multiple geographies — to keep service delivery intact from an end-to-end perspective.

In addition, governance and change management mechanisms in transition and transformation programs have also become more complex to manage, as several different providers with multiple inter-dependencies are typically involved.

An increase in M&A activity, as well as specific instances of captive centers being divested to third parties, has led to a correspondingly greater need to build effective Vendor Management Program Office (VMPO) to manage external third parties. Previously, companies could rely on internal service-level agreements (SLAs), typically with minimal governance and penalty mechanisms. Now, they require more formal and commercially astute processes.

Advances in technology have seen the introduction of new tools and platforms to manage not only service providers’ contractual and commercial performance, but also their service delivery performance. This, in turn, has led to an increased focus on skill set development and talent retention. In addition, the continuing demand for global outsourcing transactions across geographies, which require companies and vendors to work across multiple cultures, has led to an increased focus on relationship management.

Changes in the economic climate have driven regulators to increase their scrutiny of outsourcing and off-shoring transactions. Regulators may focus on processes adopted by companies to define, manage, and evaluate critical suppliers; information security assessments; contingency plans; business plan continuity; roles and responsibilities related to governance frameworks; and, most importantly, data privacy issues

Changes in both buyer behavior and supplier solutions will continue to evolve in the coming years due not only to technological innovations but also to the changing balance between risk appetite and increasing demand for shareholder returns. The complexities of executing outsourcing and off-shoring transactions are continuing to be offset by a number of leading-practice standards in terms of contracting vehicles and language. However, clients must also realize that the corresponding risks of outsourcing remain. They continue to evolve and becoming more challenging as new services appear and additional geographies begin to supply services. Clients would do well to appreciate and understand that investing in tools and people and building an effective vendor management function now can allow them to manage the risks of today, also suitably equip them with a platform to more effectively manage emerging risks. Such investments should also include flexible and scalable operating models that can allow changes in business demand to be more efficiently executed. The financial and non-financial benefits of outsourcing remain. However, the question also remains as to whether clients are suitably equipped to realize these benefits through a vendor management program office. As stated up-front, “Never say never!” Despite the challenges, outstanding business performance improvement through outsourcing can be achieved.