Vendor Oversight Strength Depends on the Contract

Podcast Transcript

Hi – my name is Abbe with Venminder.   

In this 90-second podcast, you’re going to learn about how the strength of your vendor contracts directly affects the effectiveness of your oversight management.

At Venminder, we have a team of industry experts, such as paralegals, who specialize in giving vendor contract advice daily.

Here are three critical reasons how well-developed vendor contracts help set your vendor oversight management up for success:

1. First, SLAs are king. Remember, your service level agreements, often called SLAs, define the level of service expected by your organization from a vendor. The whole reason we have these is to establish how the service will be measured, the volume of work expected as well as a range of other criteria like overall performance. SLAs are also what protects us should we need to enter remediation or terminate the vendor relationship. 

2. Second, due diligence is key. It’s important to review vendor due diligence requirements. Strong oversight management can’t exist without it. Do your due diligence not only in the beginning, but throughout the entire vendor relationship. To help support your due diligence request, try to get these written into the contract upfront.

3. Third, quality relies on contractual standards. In order to maintain oversight of activities and quality control over the product or service provided, it's necessary to use agreed-upon quality standards within the contract in order to manage any potential significant financial loss, information security problems, reputation damage and supervisory action. 

SLAs, due diligence requirements and overall quality are all reasons your vendor oversight strength depends on a strong contract. As you can see, your vendor contracts directly affect the strength of your oversight management. I hope you’ve found this helpful.

Thanks for tuning in; catch you next time!