The contract signed – the deal is done. Nothing more to do? Well actually this is when the hard work starts. How do you bring the contract to life? One of the best ways do this is to ensure that you meet your vendors regularly.
Regular meetings allow both parties to build relationships. Customers and vendors can voice when things are not going well. Strong relationships are built by having these honest and open conversations.
Regularly meetings will ensure that you keep track of your vendors performance and contract compliance on both sides.
You will often find that if a vendor customer relationship is in difficulties that meetings have stopped or reduced in number.
You will need to establish a set of meetings that encourage strong relationship at several levels; operational, contractual, and executive levels.
Your company auditors will often require evidence that you are carrying out meetings and will often ask for meeting minutes. They will carry out these checks to ensure that the investment in the vendor is being managed correctly and to the company’s benefit.
An appropriate set of meetings starts after the contract is signed ensuring that you have regular meetings in place will help with your vendor/customer relationship and will assist with contract compliance.
My next set of articles will deal with the different types of meetings – Operational, Contractual and Executive.