Policy, Program and Procedures

Hi All,

Since 2 years, I am vendor manager in a growing mid-size Clinical Research Organization (CRO) and am responsible for setting-up and improving the processes for vendor management of our clinical vendors. These are vendors that we use in the clinical studies for our Sponsors/clients. We now have a procedure in place that is partially functional, but I am interested in talking to other vendor managers in this industry to discuss how they handle vendor management, especially from a regulatory perspective and how vendor management is embedded in their organization. Currently, I am still the only vendor manager and fall under Project Management, which is good from an operational point of view, but makes it challenging to collaborate with other departments, especially with QA, which is responsible for all vendor assessments.

I am interested to see, if there are any other vendor managers from this highly regulated industry that are willing to discuss their experiences and challenges.

Hi, 

I am a compliance manager working for a FTSE100 company responsible for the vendor onboarding and management (among other responsibilities). I was given a freedom to develop and embed the process and policy. I was lucky as we made a strategic decision to launch a SAP Ariba SLP, but I am also a one person team reporting to ESG director. I agree that collaboration is challenging and it is difficult to hold teams accountable. Our current structure doesn't have a centralised compliance function, so it is very difficult to find a forum for escalations. I had to establish several governance meetings but I am not going to lie that engagement is challenging.

I am the Vendor Manager for a bank, so it's not quite the same.  We are highly regulated so my department is constantly under scrutiny.  Over my years in Vendor Management, I have reported to Risk Management, Purchasing/Finance, and Information Technology.  Right now, we have 95% compliance with other departments within the bank.  The way we have been able to achieve that is you cannot get a new vendor paid until they have been set up by the line of business into our Vendor Management tool.  We've partnered with our amazing A/P department and they are militant about not paying anyone until they receive notice that they have been set up in our Vendor Management tool.  

It's not a perfect system because there are occasionally vendors that don't go through Accounts Payable.  Those types of vendors tend to be a rare exception within our organization.  

We've also really worked to develop training materials (written, video, and one-on-one training sessions) for the line of business so that the system is easy to understand and to navigate.  That has definitely helped to increase our engagement.