Vendor Selection with a VMS: Process, Criteria, & Best Practices

Vendor selection is one of the most crucial aspects of a business, particularly when dealing with multiple business units across global locations.  

With multiple vendors, compliance regulations, and performance, vendor sourcing becomes an increasingly complex process.  

At the end of the day, vendor performance becomes an integral part of a business’s success. This is why choosing the right vendor is half battle won.  

Most organizations rely on vendor management software to streamline the vendor selection process. 

In this post, we will discuss how to enhance vendor selection with a VMS, the process involves, and the best practices. 

Let’s get started.  

Why Vendor Selection Matters in Vendor Management? 

Although vendors may operate with you short-term, they play a critical role in your organization’s scaling-up goals. Vendor performance is critical.  

The first step of achieving vendor excellence is as simple as choosing the right vendor. 

That’s because inefficient or non-compliant vendors can cause operational delays, high costs, and sometimes legal issues. 

On the other hand, the right vendor helps you: 

• Maximize ROI while maintaining desired quality 

• Stay compliant with regulatory and contractual obligations 

• Scale operations seamlessly across geographies 

• Improve transparency and decision-making through real-time data 

Now that you understand the importance of choosing the right vendors, let’s focus on how to enhance vendor selection with a vendor management system.  

The Vendor Selection Process with a VMS 

#1 Define Requirements 

You can utilize your VMS to input roles and services for vendors. You can create contracts and concise JDs based on your requirements. Plus, modern VMS systems allow you to leverage AI prompts to create vendor contracts and JDs.  

Finally, you can leverage your VMS to standardize service requisitions across several departments for better operational efficiency. 

#2 Vendor Shortlisting 

The biggest challenge in vendor selection is vendor shortlisting. Talent acquisition teams often receive thousands of applications, and shortlisting becomes a very time-consuming and tiresome process. 

The best part is that you can automate the entire vendor shortlisting process with a VMS.  

With a vendor management system, you can:  

• Streamline hiring workflows  

• Use resume parsing and candidate matching scores to filter resumes in seconds  

• Leverage chatbots in recruitment and Co-Pilot recruiters to even automate Level 1 and Level 2 interviews.  

• Customize candidate evaluation criteria based on skills, experience, education, and more.  

#3 Streamline Onboarding Process 

Hiring a vendor is a complicated process with a lot of elements, people, and processes. This is where you can use a VMS.  

With a VMS, you can do the following at one place:  

• Create and distribute jobs 

• Engage with candidates  

• Add hiring managers  

• Schedule interviews  

• Review assignments  

• Send out job offers 

In this way, you can centralize the entire onboarding journey and save a considerable amount of time and effort. 

#4. Roll Our Contracts 

Finally, you can use VMS to build contracts with pre-defined templates.  

You can also create contracts from scratch. Ensure to properly lay down SLAs, KPIs, and terms in the vendor agreement. 

Key Vendor Selection Criteria  

Let’s discover some essential criteria for vendor selection: 

• Cost & ROI: Map cost to KPIs. It can be hours worked, project-specific milestones, and more. You can then evaluate available vendors on the basis of cost.  

• Quality & Reliability: Evaluate vendors on their past performance. You can also use a VMS for credentialing and background checks.  

• Compliance & Certifications: Automatic flagging of expired licenses or missing documentation. 

• Scalability: Benchmark vendors on their ability to handle higher volumes or new geographies. 

• Technology & Innovation: Your vendors can submit timesheets, assignments, and more on the platform. So, you should evaluate them on the basis of their technological prowess.  

How a VMS Helps Select the Right Vendor 

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Scorecards and analytics remove bias from selection. 

• Global + Local Alignment: Supports standardized processes with localized compliance checks. 

• Real-Time Visibility: Provides dashboards on costs, performance, and risk. 

• Seamless Collaboration: Involves procurement, HR, legal, and operations through a unified platform. 

Final Thoughts on Vendor Selection Process with VMS 

There is no denying that vendor selection is a strategic process that will have a lasting impact on your business.  

This is where proper planning and the adoption of the right technology is so important.  

For most businesses, vendor selection is a tricky, time-consuming, and error-prone process. This is where the role of a VMS is worth in gold.  

A Vendor Management System transforms vendor selection from a manual, time-consuming activity into a streamlined, data-driven process. By combining structured workflows with real-time insights, a VMS ensures that organizations select vendors who are not just cost-effective, but also compliant, reliable, and aligned with long-term business goals. 

That’s a wrap for today.  

We hope you found this article helpful and here are some of our most-read resources that you might check out:  

• Vendor Management Implementation Strategy: Global or Local? 

• SOW Management: Gaining Control & Flexibility 

• Vendor Assessment: A Comprehensive Guide