by Angela Sarno

VP Marketing

Risky Business With PaymentWorks: E12–How to Improve Vendor Management By Breaking Down Silos

Imagine silos. You know, those tall structures on farms or the secret vaults for nuclear weapons. They serve their purposes well in those contexts. But when it comes to your vendor desk, they are detrimental.

In our latest podcast episode, we dive deep into the world of organizational silos. We explore how these barriers can hinder effective vendor management processes. Most importantly, we discuss how to tear them down.

Listen to the Full Episode

About Our Guest

Episode Takeaways on How to Improve Vendor Management

#1: “Because we’ve always done it that way” stymies innovation

#2: Teamwork makes the dream work

#3: Good data allows you to reimagine the vendor desk

#4: Automation + security = strategic opportunity

#5: Building new processes means building trust

Must-Read Episode Quotes about How to Improve Vendor Management

How Vendor Management Appreciation Day Can Help

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Listen to the Full Episode

Listen to the episode here.

You don’t want to miss today’s podcast episode on how to improve vendor management.

Our guest, Jenn Glassman, walks us through just how many people, verticals, and stakeholders touch vendor management and why collaboration is paramount.

It’s a must-listen episode filled with tangible guidance on how to align teams for effective, secure, and profitable vendor management.

We spoke with Jenn about the nitty-gritty of vendor management, especially in decentralized organizations. She did not disappoint in sharing her perspective.

Tune in if you’re looking for how to improve vendor management. You’ll walk away with several action items that you can implement right away to make an impact on your processes.

About Our Guest

Jenn Glassman has spent over 20 years supporting public government and higher ed institutions in the procure-to-pay space. Her predominant focus is higher ed.

Jenn has held various leadership roles supporting systems and IT but largely supporting procurement.

Her most recent leadership position was Director of Procurement at the University of Virginia. She graciously detailed experiences and insights from her time in higher education.

One of the best things about Jenn? She knows the importance of asking difficult questions.

And let’s face it. When organizations are looking for proactive ways on how to improve vendor management, asking difficult questions is necessary to find the right solution.

You’ll see some of those difficult questions below. Jenn embraces them, and encourages the vendor desk and tangential teams to do the same.

In other words, she doesn’t beat around the bush.

Jenn has seen a lot after working for more than two decades in distributed (and often siloed) organizations.

We’re thrilled to hear her experience and recap the most noteworthy takeaways for you below.

And if you really want to pull your pom poms out about vendor management, don’t forget about Vendor Management Appreciation Day. Details at the end of the blog.

Episode Takeaways on How to Improve Management

#1: “Because we’ve always done it that way” stymies innovation

Jenn emphasized the importance of creating a flexible environment for staff. It’s important to foster an atmosphere where it’s OK to say “I don’t know.”

Why? Because openness fosters objectivity and allows the organization to get surgical in how to improve vendor management.

In Jenn’s case at UVA, the culture of openness that she created allowed the team to scrutinize the vendor registration form.

They began to go through the form and ask,“Okay, why are we asking this question?”

This rigorous, honest evaluation allowed them to eliminate data that wasn’t necessarily good vendor information – or collect it further downstream when it made more sense.

#2: Teamwork makes the dream work

Jenn points out the benefits of making vendor management people the center of the story when streamlining processes.

Additionally, it makes logical sense when you consider just how many people, teams, and vertical touch procurement.

Data, compliance, supplier diversity, payables – these are just some of the teams involved in vendor onboarding and management. Their input is essential when refining systems and processes.

Collaboration is good. But balance is key. Everyone who does anything with a vendor should be encouraged to offer input in onboarding processes.

And vendors matter, too. This is why moving the key entry to the supplier and giving them ownership of that process makes sense.

It instills trust in how their payment information is handled and embeds them in the flow.

Effecting change across the organization is no easy feat. It requires multiple stakeholders to understand the impacts their team can have, including the benefits to them.

Vendor management teams need to meet people in the middle so they understand they have a stake.

At the same time, teams must ensure that stakeholders aren’t overly invested to the point where it causes operational gridlock with inflexible opinions.

#3: Good data allows you to reimagine the vendor desk

Once everyone is on board and comfortable with streamlined processes and automated solutions, the possibilities for the vendor desk are endless.

While it depends on the talent an institution has on hand, vendor management can hone in on the biggest needs of the day.

Responsibilities might include:

Auditing and alignment with 1099 tax support services and processes
Business analysis, troubleshooting problems associated with under-registration or other downstream issues, analyzing travel/expense card activity
Systems and process design work
Customer excellence and customer support

#4: Automation + security = strategic opportunity

You want to have a little peace of mind when you’re sending payments for millions of dollars.

While it might be nice to snap your fingers and automate everything, the reality is that risk is a part of the deal.

Jenn explained how she was able to feel confident that her institution wasn’t incurring a ton of risk. She invited treasury, IT, risk, and other teams to the conversation to help strengthen vulnerable organizational processes.

After strengthening any vulnerable areas, she could start the larger conversation about automating payments across the organization.

She pointed out that conversations about risk also create opportunities to build a more strategic program and earn revenue for that service. It requires a mindset change, to be sure.

But once, you are able to get the right teams to align you can shift your thinking from a simple process change to a more strategic evaluation of what’s possible.

#5: Building new processes means building trust

When exploring how to improve vendor management, you have to look at how to foster a culture of collaboration and trust.

In decentralized organizations, trust is built through accountability. It starts with overarching processes and funnels down into individual decisions.

Ownership is the name of the game. It’s imperative to synthesize more streamlined processes that create additional efficiencies.

Each person must take responsibility for their decisions and own those decisions for the greater good. It’s the only way to work as a team effectively and ensure that operations don’t become discombobulated over time.

Again, that requires people to think across verticals to be able to communicate well. And a little bit of dissent isn’t a bad thing; it can actually add value by pushing the most efficient solutions through.

Healthy dialogue is necessary. It happens when people can own their individual decisions while simultaneously looking at the bigger picture, the end user, and the overarching mission.

Must-Read Episode Quotes about How to Improve Vendor Management

“The job well done is the simplification. It is reducing those steps. It is creating automation that isn’t just surface level appearance rhetoric of simplicity, but actual simplicity. If we can get a process or a series of processes that alleviate significant time, energy investment across the university or across the institution that’s what I’m shooting for. ” (~5:25)
“We really just sat there and scrutinized our registration form and said, “Okay, why are we asking this question?” And we did that for every single question. If we found that the data we were collecting…[required] no action being taken or there was no analytics being run or…the data was likely to become stale, then we said, “We’re not going to collect it up-front.” (~8:27)
“If you really are saying, ‘I want to be as close to 100% electronic payments,’ you have to have a very strong confidence across your organization that the automated payments can be done securely. Once you really establish that…you can really start opening up the conversation around, ‘How do we do automated payments, and what exactly does that mean?’”(~21:16)
“I view vendor management processes like a crossroads of many other processes. It’s not so much that I want them to sing the exact same tune. I kind of want them to harmonize.” (~25:58)
“One of my favorite things about procurement is that it’s…the administrative process that most closely supports a direct mission. Because a direct mission requires goods. It requires services…suppliers and good relationships with suppliers…good contracts. And people can’t move forward…contribute to the mission without those things.”(~31:55)
“At the end of the day, we want a supplier or vendor or payee to register quickly to get to the stage of the contract negotiation, to get the purchase order out, and then the goods and services engaged and to get fast payment. That’s what we’re shooting for.” (~32:54)

How Vendor Management Appreciation Day Can Help

If today’s episode doesn’t get you pumped about creative ways on how to improve vendor management, we don’t know what will. Or maybe we do.

Whether you work in decentralized organizations or not, it’s time for everyone to come together in honor of one of the most important, sometimes under-recognized roles across industries.

How? Join us in observing Vendor Management Appreciation Day (VMAD).

Cartoon graphic of how to improve vendor management by celebrating Vendor Management Appreciation Day