All of us come in contact with Vendors or Resellers. Many of us don’t give much thought to managing our vendors. I think that is a mistake.
Vendor management is something that you should add to your list as a CAD Manager. Here are some ideas about VM.
Identify which vendors to manage…
First make a list of all the vendors you use. Write down everyone, big and small. Then go through the list and sort it by purchasing dollar volumn.
Take the top five and add them to your list of vendors to manage.
Now sort them by software seat count.
Take the top 5 and add them to your list. Remove duplicates.
Now sort them by productivity enhancement. It may be a small tool that does one thing that save tons of time.
Take the top 5 and add them to your list. Remove duplicates.
Now sort the list with the troublemakers, non performers, price gougers, con artists and “used car” salesman at the top.
Take the top 5 and add them to your list. Remove duplicates.
This is a good starting point for which vendors you need to manage