Defining Vendor Stewardship

As an act of governance, vendor stewardship directly and positively impacts financial strength and social responsibility.

Tactically, vendor stewardship redefines how to position the vendor relationships in a more collaborative fashion, while simultaneously reaching improved levels of service and reduced cost. Other tactical benefits may include:

• • • • • • • • • Getting contracts with SOWs (Statements of Work), SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and other key performance metric documentation.
                • Building in future competitive rate and business downturn protections.

Strategically, vendor stewardship delivers many elements of corporate sourcing (a system where divisions of companies coordinate the procurement and distribution of materials, parts, equipment and supplies for the organization. This is a supply chain, purchasing/procurement and inventory function that enables bulk discounting, auditing and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. (Reference Wikipedia) to the SMB space.