How Enterprise Can Leverage a Digital Supply Chain Network To Maximize Savings?

Author: Tim Moegen
May 7, 2025 - 5 MIN. READ

Key Takeaways:

• Vendor management isn’t just about price; it’s about building strategic partnerships to grow your business.
• A well-defined vendor management process helps you grow your supplier pool and maintain quality as you scale.
• Key focus areas include communication, performance monitoring, information management, and compliance.
• Raiven’s Portal gives you access to all your vendor accounts in one place for streamlined management.

Why Vendor Management Matters

Vendors aren’t just suppliers, they’re also business partners. While buying parts and materials from them, you're also building relationships that impact your team's success, profitability, and ability to scale.

To maximize the value of these relationships, you need a structured vendor management process. This guide explains how to build one and why it matters.

What’s Vendor Management?

You're probably buying from multiple vendors, some you've known for years, and some recently added to your supply chain.

If you're like most contractors in the trades, your supply chain is constantly growing and evolving.

Do you have a formal process for managing vendor relationships?

Vendor management means creating a system to:

1. Improve communication
2. Set expectations
3. Track performance
4. Reduce risk
5. Stay compliant
6. Support long-term growth

It’s about moving from being reactive to being strategic.

This matters because:

• It helps you maintain quality standards as you work with more vendors. This is crucial as you scale your business,
• It creates clear workflows and expectations for your buying team.

Think of your vendor management process as a foundation to help you get more out of investments like automation and AI adoption.

Vendor Management Best Practices for the Trades

What does good vendor management look like in the trades, especially for electrical and HVAC contractors?

Who is a vetted vendor, and who isn’t? Keep an organized and up-to-date list of your vetted suppliers in a central repository, along with contact information and contracts.

You can refine the list further by:

• Indicating which vendors are preferred
• Associating vendors with specific product categories
• Setting buying limits on some vendors or additional checks and controls

2. Manage Your Vendor Accounts

Each vendor likely has their login portal. Multiply that by 10+ vendors, and it’s easy to lose control.

Best practices:

• Use a secure password manager
• Define who can access what
• Remove access when roles change

3. Researching, Selecting, and Vetting New Vendors

Your buying team should have a go-to checklist for due diligence when choosing new vendors.

It should include:

• Product Quality
• Cost
• Shipping times
• Customer service response time
• References
• How long the supplier has been around

4. Negotiating Contracts

Contracts add structure to your relationship with vendors. These best practices will help you negotiate good contracts:

• Prepare: Determine your needs before reaching out to a vendor.
• Conduct market research: This will give you an idea of a reasonable request.
• Share your requirements with the vendor: Ideally, you should use numbers to communicate clear expectations.
• Assess what the vendor proposes: Be sure to keep your top priorities in mind.
• Have options: If negotiations fail, have an alternative ready.

Pro Tip: You should also have a process for tracking when contracts expire and engaging in new negotiations.

5. Monitoring Vendor Performance

Are your vendors meeting their end of the deal? Keep track of this by using scorecards.

You can evaluate each order's price, product quality, and fulfillment time. On a monthly or quarterly basis, you should look deeper into supplier performance and ask:

• Is the vendor responsive when you need help? Are they turning out to be a reliable vendor?
• Are they adding more products to their catalog?
• Where do they stand on innovation? A partner dedicated to AI adoption and developing a digital supply chain can be a plus for your business.
• Lastly, you can assess a vendor’s public financial filings to assess their performance.

6. Compliance and Risk

Compliance is a growing concern in procurement. A better vendor management process can help.

What does compliance look like in the trades?

For HVAC contractors, it can be working with suppliers who were ahead of the new refrigerant requirements adopted in 2025.

In the electrical industry, compliance can be achieved by selecting vendors who ship products with proper labeling.

You can improve compliance with these best practices:

• Add compliance requirements to the contract terms you negotiate
• When vetting a new supplier, ask them about their compliance processes
• Plan regular compliance audits

How to Build Relationships with Your Vendors

Your vendors are essential to your business. Treat them as partners, not just service providers.

Ways to build better relationships:

• Schedule regular check-ins
• Share goals and performance feedback
• Communicate openly—even when things go wrong
• Choose vendors aligned with your long-term vision (e.g., AI integration, digital workflows)

How Raiven Supports Vendor Management

Raiven’s digital supply chain platform helps you manage all your vendor relationships in one place.

With Raiven’s Portal, you can:

• Access a vetted vendor network
• Centralize your supplier communications
• View and manage vendor accounts
• Onboard your vendors (enterprise version)
• Streamline procurement and reduce admin burden

It’s one of the many advantages of working with Raiven.