Managing Your Fleet Supply Chain

Vendor Management is a process to extract value out of your suppliers in the long term.

Effective management involves striking a balance of cost control and risk reduction whilst consistently delivering good quality services.

Vendor relationships are a two-way process, so we ensure we support vendors to provide the best possible service which aligns with your organisation’s objectives.

Fleet Vendor Management Services

Our Fleet Vendor Management Solution

At EVP Solutions, our experts combine deep domain expertise with extensive fleet management skills to provide a best-in-class vendor management service.

Years of experience and understanding enable us to structure contracts to the benefit of our clients and understand what vendors will tolerate and what they can deliver. We work with a broad range of fleet suppliers which allows us to understand what levels of service should be expected and use our supplier leverage to address performance issues should they arise, keeping your fleet operations safe and efficient.

We consolidate management information into one dashboard, which gives a central viewpoint of fleet contracts and supplier performance. The system also allows us to make accurate comparisons across our customer base and facilitate evidence-based decisions.

Please take a look at our most recent case studies or get in touch with a member of our team for more information.

The Benefits of Vendor Management

Contract Compliance

Often contracts are executed by the procurement team, then handed to operational stakeholders to manage the agreements.

Often the operational stakeholders have had limited input into the procurement process and are not aware of the expected deliverables and service levels.

This can create a disconnect between the supplier and the stakeholders and lead to a shift of power to the supplier over the course of the agreement.

Cost Control

Prices can often creep up over time if they are not effectively reviewed and controlled. This is especially so in the fleet leases where the fleet management company can adjust several pricing elements.

Benchmarking prices and service levels over the course of the agreement can keep the supplier honest and providing services in line with the original procurement process.

Vendor Engagement

The vendor management process creates an open and transparent dialogue encouraging innovation and commitment from both parties.

The engagement process can help shape the service delivery to the benefit of the customer.

In the longer term, the customer can understand what they need from a supplier, which will help when contracts are due for renewal.

Risk Management

Active vendor management reduces the risk of non-delivery of services through holding the vendor to account for their performance.

As a result, issues get addressed promptly and are not ignored by the supplier or the customer.

Vendor Management Challenges

Skills and Expertise

Fleet management strategy can be a complex area to understand.

Specialist skills help to ensure you can manage the contract correctly, reducing the risk the vendor will pull the wool over your eyes unless you know the fleet category well.

Where suppliers identify a shortfall in expertise they could use this as an opportunity to exploit the customer and increase margins.

Resource

Managing vendors can be a time-consuming activity, especially where there isn’t a dedicated team in place.

Vendor management may be part of a role where other activities are seen as a priority and therefore not get the focus which is required.

Fleet often involves multiple stakeholders from procurement, finance, operations, human resources and health & safety. It is important however to identify who has the ultimate reponsibility for the fleet relationships.

Systems and Processes

For many organisations, information can be spread throughout the business and not held in a central location.

This can lead to a breakdown or shortfall in communications where stakeholders only get part of the picture which will cause poor decisions to be made.

The Vendor Management Process

Set the Strategy

Establish SMART objectives with a broad group of stakeholders who have an interest in the fleet.

This way, all stakeholders know they have had input into the process and their needs addressed. It also ensures the supplier uses the correct metrics rather than what the supplier wants to report.

Roles & Responsibilities

Include the Vendor’s and the customer’s responsibilities, so everyone within the process knows what they are signing up to.

Seek representation from across regions or divisions to ensure you cover all business needs.

Tier roles according to a RACI matrix, so you only engage stakeholders where they need to be

Data and Information

Gather relevant information from across the supply chain both internally and from the Vendor.

Data will come from various sources and may involve data in different formats and across different time zones. In these instances, normalise and link data together where appropriate and add value to any analysis you are likely to conduct.

Performance Criteria

Criteria may vary according to service provision and should link to the overall strategy.

Areas such as driver satisfaction will form part of this and business-related commercial indicators such as cost, quality, and delivery.

Jointly assess risks over the contractual term and establish joint plans to address issues at different thresholds.

Agree & Implement

At the end of the agreement, both parties will need to formalise the vendor management process and commit to managing the process together.

The process should always strike a balance using empirical data and human qualitative input.

If you would like to talk about how we can help manage your vendors, please contact us.