Vendor Management Skills
Do you need vendor management skills to function well in your job role? This article provides a guide on how you can develop the skills and include them on your resume.
What are Vendor Management Skills?
Vendor management skills are the ability to build and maintain relationships with vendors who supply goods and services to their companies. They utilize this skill to negotiate a variety of contracts, manage vendor performance and also resolve issues.
Vendor management skills are very important because it has an effect on the whole business and that is why hiring managers are always on the lookout for experienced professionals in the field. Vendors are third-party providers and when they are well-managed effectively, the organization has a lot to benefit such as an increase in finance.
Vendor Management Skills include the following:
Negotiation Skills
One of the advantages of vendor management skills is that it involves negotiation which is not just about bargaining prices. Negotiation involves coming to a conclusion and making the other party agree with your terms which can be beneficial to you. Negotiation is a vendor management skill that involves contracts to increase margins and build a sustainable relationship with service providers.
Decision-making Skills
Vendor management skills involve a lot of consideration such as how many businesses offer the same product /service. When choosing vendors, managers need to take into consideration the necessity of the organization. You need to be able to make logical decisions that can bring a lot of profit to your organization. Decision-making skills may provide you with a wide range of choices, making you very much effective at explaining them or finalizing your proposal offer.
Financial Skills
Financial skills enable you to manage your spending and also maintain accurate records of transactions. Vendor managers work with third parties to make purchases, so it is highly essential to possess financial skills when looking for this role. This helps you to make excellent and sound decisions. You are also expected to keep accurate financial records for your employer.
Importance of Vendor Management Skills
- Mitigate risks
Vendor management skills are very important because it enables you to keep track of your suppliers and also provide you with the necessary information you need to decide if you want to work with the vendor or not. You can authenticate the supplier information such as qualifications and also the track record of the vendor. This will protect you and your organization from risk.
- Optimize Performance
Once you have an active supplier in your vendor management system, you can estimate the performance of the contract to ensure that the company is meeting your needs and is complying with the terms of the contract. The data that you derive from tracking performance can help you to forecast upcoming challenges and also specify areas where there is a need for improvement.
- Reduce Costs
Good vendor management skills enable you to control costs. This is achieved by negotiating with suppliers for better rates, access to discounts, and other available incentives to expand your profit margin.
- Creates loyal Relationship
It is very difficult to find a good vendor so if you have gotten one you have to maintain an excellent relationship with the vendor. Effective vendor management skills help you to build a good relationship with vendors that lead to a smooth process which can help you to build loyalty. You need to keep good vendors in your vendor management system for a long time.
- Protect Your Brand
Your company’s brand is highly valuable and you need to ensure that you protect it. Bad vendors can tarnish the reputation and thereby resulting in a poor profit. Excellent vendor management skills if engaged can provide you with the information you need about a vendor such as a vendor’s social and environmental standards, once you have access to this information, you can now be able to decide who is a good and bad vendor.
How to Improve your Vendor Management Skills
- Find a mentor
One of the best ways to enhance your vendor management skills is to look for a professional in the field who you can learn from to boost your career. You should be very close to the professional to learn from his failures and the secret of his success. One of the best ways to obtain this information is by asking the professional a lot of questions so that you can have the relevant information.
- Enroll in an Online Course
You can enroll in an online course to obtain more information, for instance, you can acquire certifications in management or supply chain management to boost your skills. This certification will give you a wider scope of vendor management.
- Learn from your past negotiations
Pay very close attention to the reaction of vendors to identify behaviors. In the past you must have related with different vendors, you should learn from your past mistakes with them. It is usually said that experience is the best teacher, ensure that you do not repeat your past failures but learn from them so that you can be successful
- Evaluate your strength and Weaknesses
You need to regularly assess your strengths and weakness as a vendor manager, then work hard in areas you feel you are not doing well. You can also ask professionals in the field to give you tips for you to improve your performance.
- Join a Network of professionals
You should also collaborate or work closely with other vendors; this is a very excellent way to hone some essential skills that can boost your career. Working with other professionals is highly vital because they can recommend high-quality vendors that will boost your organization.
Jobs that Require Vendor Management Skills
- Vendor manager: A vendor is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with vendors to supply goods and services to the company. They are responsible for negotiating contracts with suppliers. To become a vendor manager, you need excellent vendor management skills to accomplish your responsibility.
- Supply Chain Manager: A supply chain manager is responsible for liaising with suppliers for the purchase of goods and services. A supply chain manager needs vendor management skills to accomplish his responsibility.
- Business Analyst: A business analyst needs vendor management skills to be able to negotiate with vendors or suppliers to run a business successfully.
How to include Vendor management Skills in your Resume
- Describe your ability to work with third-party suppliers and the metrics you use to assess these suppliers at regular intervals
- Describe your ability to pay meticulous attention and the end of the day obtain results
- Compare and contrasts by mentioning statistics which means describing the cost-saving practices you have been using. It is also important for you also talk about how you have been able to sustain your relationships with vendors and how it has helped you.
- Describe the technical abilities you possess such as the ability to utilize specific software that can help your work.
- Describe your level of diplomacy and tact in dealing with vendors because it is the key to beneficial negotiations. You should also include your win-win projects in your resume.
- Highlight your achievement results by focusing on your individual and team performance
- Your resume should also be a shining light for the results you have achieved using your vendor management skills and do not just list plainly on your resume. Discuss your most pertinent experience and the results you got.
- Describe your knowledge of different languages in communicating with vendors from different cultural backgrounds. This is very important because you will negotiate with suppliers from different countries.
- Utilize keywords power words in your resume
- Highlight the skills you possess as a vendor manager. Highlight the following skills:
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- Project management
- Change management
- Negotiation
- Decision-making
- Stakeholder management
- Problem-solving
- Communication
- Organization
- Supplier evaluation
- Flexibility
- Vendor contracts
- Familiarity with software
- Communication
- Service-level Agreement management
- Digital fluency
- Fabricating
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Examples of how to Include Vendor Management Skills in Your Resume
Work Experience
Regional Vendor Manager- Fortinet Bonefete Fun (2021-2022)
- Efficiently supervised and delivered the entire sales cycle of the Fortinet business
- Increased Gross profit accomplishment by 20% from 2020 to 2021
- Strategic planning and account mapping sessions with top resellers across ME
- Proactively seeking internal authorizations on expected closures in terms of finance, logistics, and channel to ensure a smooth process
- Adding value by endorsing POC requests and involving in pre-sales activities
- Equipping and maintaining pipelines and quarterly forecasts
- Formulating presentations and presenting to Fortinet and EXN management teams on performance, plans, goals, and strategies to support vendor business
- Focused on improving fulfillment business and growing SMB business by 25% in 2022
- Organizing a vendor team of 2 members with project roadmaps and development
Vendor Manager/ Contact Center Director
- Improved vendor performance by 11% versus last year by ensuring planning and execution were aligned with client needs
- Creation of KPIs dashboards at all levels to estimate productivity and trigger actions to attack main opportunity areas
- Communication alignment between internal stakeholders and vendors reduces customers escalations by 50%
- Developed dashboards and reports that allow clear visibility of the operation
How to Demonstrate Vendor Management Skills in an Interview
- Discuss Your Most Crucial Experience; the best way to demonstrate your skills is to discuss your most crucial experience. Discuss your relationship with vendors and how you were able to sustain that relationship. You should also elaborate on how you were able to bargain with suppliers to come to an agreement and the tremendous results you got. Expand on your abilities to access vendors and the methodologies you put in place to get your final result.
- Be very clear and specific: During a vendor management interview session, you will be required to give a lot of examples such as your good or bad experiences with vendors, you need to be very clear so that the interviewer will not misunderstand you.
- Ask questions: You need to ask the interviewer questions, these questions should be follow-up questions that will support what the interviewer said. The questions must be very relevant and they must correlate to the subject matter of the conversation. This will make the interview session lively. Asking questions will also show the interviewer that you are very much interested in what the interviewer is saying.
- Demonstrate Respect Skills: Vendor management skills require humility because you have to connect with vendors and negotiate with them for a contract. You need to demonstrate that you are respectful because that is one of the best ways to showcase your skills. During the interview, the session pays keen attention to what the interviewer is saying. At the end of the interview session say thank you. This will show that you are highly respected and can keep relationships. Demonstrating this skill may land you your dream job.
- Be concise: Do not bore the interviewer with the irrelevant conversation but say always say something reasonable that will interest your interviewer or will attract your interviewer. Do not beat around the bush when you are responding to interview questions but go straight to the point.
Examples of Questions to Test Vendor Management Skills
- Are you comfortable negotiating with vendors?
Interviewers ask this question to ensure that you have the requisite experience negotiating contracts. To answer this question successfully, share a time when you have successfully negotiated with the vendor. Explain the strategic steps you took to strike the deal.
- What are some of the essential qualities of successful vendor management?
This question is asked by the interviewer to determine if you possess the relevant skills and abilities that the role requires. In answering this question, highlight some of the most important qualities that a vendor manager is supposed to have. For instance: communication skills, problem-solving, and negotiation skills.
- What is your process for selecting new vendors?
This question is asked by the hiring manager to ascertain how you make decisions and assess options. In answering this question, discuss the metrics you use to use to select vendors and you should also discuss if the metrics are successful or not.
- If a vendor continuously underperforms, how will you handle the situation?
This question can help the hiring manager to understand how to resolve conflicts and make strategic decisions. At this juncture, the best way to answer the question is to emphasize your problem-solving skills.
- Can you recommend the areas you feel we can improve on our vendor management process?
This question is a great way to test your knowledge of vendor management and the processes involved in improving it. When answering this question, narrow it to the areas you will focus on and why they are very important.