Job Description for Vendor Management

If you’re planning on becoming a vendor relationship manager, it’s important to acquaint yourself with the typical duties by browsing through the various job description vendor management.

The duties of a vendor manager revolve around creating and managing relationships with various suppliers (vendors) that provide products and services to a company. A vendor manager ensures that every supplier works within the contractual obligations they signed up for, which typically include supplying high-quality products and delivering the products on time.

Vendor management is a critical role in any company as it affects the company’s ability to perform productively and efficiently.

Job Description Vendor Management: The Specific Duties

The primary role of a vendor manager is to liaise with vendors and manage all their activities with the company. The role starts with vendor induction and extends to contract performance monitoring, vendor communications, and vendor performance management, among others.

Specific duties of a vendor relationship manager include the following:

Vendor evaluation and selection: As a vendor manager, you’re going to be a key figure in the evaluation and selection of vendors for the company. Every company has a set of criteria for evaluating and selecting potential suppliers.

Vendor integration: Once a vendor has been evaluated and selected, it is the role of the vendor manager to explain the company’s expectations, negotiate terms, and also train them on the company’s values and business processes.

Performance monitoring: A vendor relationship manager also monitors the performance of existing contracts with vendors, ensuring such things as delivery of products, quality of deliveries, and verifying the accuracy of invoices and other estimates.

Liaison: Part of vendor management work entails liaising with suppliers on a number of issues. A vendor relationship manager acts as the interface between the company and its suppliers. As a vendor manager, it’s your duty to keep suppliers up-to-date on what’s happening within the company especially in case of changes that may affect the supply of products or services.

How to Become a Vendor Management Professional

You need a minimum of a bachelor’s degree to be considered for a vendor management position. Top courses for this position include bachelor’s in supply chain management, business administration, procurement and logistics, purchasing, statistics, and business finance.

Studying the relevant course is just one step in the right direction though. You need some bit of experience to progress to full vendor relation manager role. Working in procurement or supply chain management equips you with the relevant skills in contract management, performance analysis, and budgeting that you need as a vendor relationship manager.

You must also have knowledge of at least one vendor management application and also have solid skills on the different vendor performance metrics.

How Much Do Vendor Management Professionals Earn?

Vendor relationship managers earned a median salary of 64,850 per year as of May 2016, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. According to Payscale, $70,000 is the average salary you can expect to earn as a vendor relationship manager.

Unlike many other jobs, the salary for vendor managers is greatly influenced by experience and location. Data from surveys by Payscale shows that vendor managers are overall very satisfied with their jobs.

What’s the Future Outlook for Vendor Management Professionals

According to the BLS, the overall employment of professionals in the procurement and supplies chain management field is projected to decline by 3 percent over the decade between 2016 and 2026. There are many factors attributed to this decline but prominently, the increasing automation of procurement processes is one of the major ones.

That being said, vendor relationship managers per se continue to be sought after given that these positions are available is a wide range of industries, from manufacturing industries to big technology firms, among others. Adapting to the job’s changing needs will make you more marketable and future-proof your current job.

In Summary

Any decent job description for vendor management should give you a clear idea of what the job of vendor relationship manager entails. Vendor managers manage all affairs pertaining to suppliers, including orienting them after selection, managing service or product delivery from each supplier, ensuring smooth communications between vendors and the company, and ensuring accurate invoices and budgets as regard to suppliers, among others. While the BLS predicts a slight decline in the demand for vendor managers over the next decade, there’s no reason to slow down your efforts to hook a good vendor management job in the near future.