Hitting “Reset” on Your Vendor Roster

I recently had the opportunity for most of a week to sit down with a number of my T&D clients and talk about their outsource vendor landscape. As you may relate, every department comes up with a series of vendors that are accumulated over time (by various people, for various reasons), until the picture looks somewhat like this:

Look familiar? Don’t worry, you’re in good company!

It’s called accumulation by accretion, and it happens all the time (this is especially prevalent in companies that have been growing rapidly, have re-organized recently, or have been through a merger).

In that collection there are a few go-to vendors (who may be getting overloaded), there are under-performers, and there are definitely some mis-matches. And, with the turnover of training personnel over time, there is often a lack of clear understanding of vendor competencies.

Every once in a while, a department needs a Reset, which is what several clients were discussing with me:

The Reset process involves a department-wide analysis, evaluation, and categorization process, including an aligning of current vendors with their core competencies, and the identification of new suppliers to fill in current and future gaps. The outcome? Strategic resource alignment and a go-forward Vendor Map.

This brief video explains:

Operational excellence only comes about by intelligent planning. It’s something we do here at Impactiviti – partnering with clients to bring order to the outsourcing process.

This process, joined to a training workshop on Best Practices for Project and Vendor Management, is a big step forward in Operational Excellence for the department. Optimization of outsource resources can result in major budget savings and far more successful execution of projects.

Also on the blog: Tossing Trainers Into the Deep End of the Pool