Welcome to.....

VENDORCOMPLIANCE.INFO

Specializing in EDI and vendor compliance for manufacturers, distributors, &  retailers.

Define your own vendor compliance rules

If you've spent the time and money complying with your own customer's requirements, you might be thinking that it would be nice if your own vendors conformed to a single set of rules you define.  Vendor compliance can include various quality control checks of the goods and materials you are purchasing from your own vendors.

A good place to get started to defining your own in-house vendor compliance rules is to review the vendor compliance rules of your customers. 

Be careful though: vendor compliance rules typically require both parties to adhere to a set of operating standards, even though as you review the vendor compliance documents it seems like you (the vendor) is doing all the work complying!  Realize that your customers must have the disciplines and personnel in place in their own internal procedures to be able to audit their vendors based on their compliance rules.  If your company does not have the disciplines and personnel in place to audit your vendors, either don't establish compliance rules or take small steps and implement rules over time. 

For example, you might want to just start by asking your vendors to put a barcode label you define on the products and/or shipping cartons.  This assumes that you have developed the capability to scan those barcodes for receiving verification or inventory control.  If you require your vendors to go through the expense of implementing a change to their operations at their expense, you should at least have the ability to fully utilize what you're asking your vendors to do.

Most vendor-retailer partnerships are finalized by a signed contract between the two parties.  This contract, normally several pages long and filled with all sorts of legal verbiage about how the vendor will act and perform for the customer, can also contain a section requiring the vendor to sign that all vendor compliance rules will be followed.  Since your customer also signs this contract, both parties are bound by the terms of the contract.  This is simply a common-sense caution: do not create and bind you and your vendors to a set of operating requirements if you cannot fulfill your end of the contract and successfully audit your the performance of your vendors.

If you would like assistance in creating your own company's set of vendor compliance rules, we can help you - simply contact us at your convenience.

One final note:  BE KIND TO YOUR VENDORS!  You know how difficult it was getting your company to comply with the rules of your customers - have some sympathy for your vendors.