OVERVIEW
A large corporation found that their
- Staff in various branch offices throughout the country, needed to request approved vendors from HQ
- The vendor management dept would find that vendor details and documents are outdated
- Vendors who wished to submit their bid for tenders would find out that they needed to urgently send updated company profiles & certifications to participate
- The vendor management dept were overburdened by manual processes - vendor sheets were kept in various Excel files
- Empowered vendors to create their own profiles, submit paperwork and be notified of approvals
- The tender process was streamlined and invitations would be auto-emailed to vendors
- Vendors were notified when approvals had expired and they needed to submit their latest documentation
- Staff from throughout the country could access the cloud-based system and look up approved vendors
- Business units could submit complex vendor appraisals (including weightages etc)
MY ROLE
I worked with our multidisciplinary team to take the system from conception to launch.
I conducted research, user interviews, drafted technical workflows & documentation, oversaw project execution, and worked closely with senior management, data entry clerks, the vendor management dept and end users. I also conducted training for both sales staff and managers.
CHALLENGES
The company's IT dept introduced a new Single Sign On requirement at the point when the system was about to be launched. We had to quickly review the technical specs, and I personally helped with the technical integration so that the project could proceed
OUTCOMES
By shifting the responsibility of maintaining updated profiles to the vendors themselves, this eliminated the burden of reviewing/following up/updating the records maintained by the company's staff.
Staff could be assured that the profiles available in the system were up-to-date, and that vendors who fall below performance requirements would be blacklisted