Small businesses today have no time and rely on third-party vendor management to build the vendor relationships they need to be competitive.How many vendors does your business work with each day? Is it five or 15 or more? How’s your relationship with those vendors? Are you getting everything you need from them? Vendor management best practices suggest you should choose vendors based on their ability to help you achieve your business requirements. Does yours?

SMBs often struggle with getting the most out of their vendor relationships because they don’t have time to manage those relationships well from the start. You know you should do your due diligence and take your time selecting vendors who can help you move forward. You know you should talk to other customers before hiring a vendor, and you should practice vendor risk management and monitor your vendors closely. You know all these things, but fitting them all into your already over-full schedule isn’t always possible. Something must wait, and often it’s the time you need to manage your vendor relationship properly.

Reasons You Need Third-Party IT Vendor Management

The drawback to putting vendor relationships at the bottom of your to-do list is, that relationship is one of the most important business relationships that your SMB will have. Vendors play a key role in the success of your business, and when the IT vendor relationship is well-managed, you can expect better service, higher quality, and better pricing and contractual terms.

For SMBs, building IT vendor relationships that have the potential to move your business forward is not only time-consuming, but it can often the impossible. That’s when having a third-party IT vendor manager or can mean the difference between having IT vendors and having IT partners. Here are 3 reasons you may need an IT vendor management option to turn those relationships into partnerships:

  1. Vendors focus their greatest efforts and resources where they find their best sales. That means unless you’re a top tier customer in their region, the vendor spends more time with other, more profitable, customers. Third-party vendor management leverages buying power to purchase higher tiers of service and then spreads that out through all their customers. In turn, vendors provide greater benefits such as cost savings, better service guarantees, and increased support. The third-party manager passes those benefits on to customers.
  2. Small businesses fall to the end of the line for vendor service and support. For example, if your small business experiences a problem at the same time as one of your vendor’s larger customers, the larger customer receives service first because the vendor has more at stake with that customer. In contrast, the third-party vendor manager or service provider is more likely to receive immediate help for your problems because of their positioning on the sales ladder.
  3. IT Vendors may not understand the needs of your business, but your vendor management provider will. Third-party vendor management providers specialize in serving small businesses probably focusing on a few verticals where they can provide the best service. An IT vendor focuses on the pain points specific to their larger market, but your service provider concentrates on ensuring that you receive the best care and services to keep your business running smoothly.

IT vendor management includes more than just choosing a vendor and trusting them to provide great software or applications and unparalleled service. To truly leverage your IT vendor relationships may take far more resources than your SMB can afford to invest. That doesn’t mean you have to lose out on great benefits, it means you should turn to a trusted vendor management partner to help you build better IT vendor relationships.