| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Anything and everything about vendor management, just ask. Thread poster: RESOURCEFUL L10
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Sadek_A 
Local time: 13:50
English to Arabic
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No answers to my questions, or were they included in those hidden posts?
I didn't get a chance to view any of them.
| | | | Jossy Res
France
Local time: 11:50
French to Dutch
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| Times change perhaps? | Jun 23, 2021 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
I must say that I’ve been working with most of my long-standing customers with no NDAs, no contracts and no formal POs, and in case of a lawsuit I can confidently say that the emails exchanged are more than enough.
Hi Teresa,
Great to hear that you have such good relationships with your long-standing customers and perhaps this was easier in the past, but in my opinion working without a PO or contract shouldn't be general advice for translators. It might depend on how you meet your customers and how well you know them, but through the internet I guess it is better to protect yourself against the risks. Especially nowadays with the GDPR policy and increased cybercrime. As a translator you have a company to run, working with a contract that states the terms and conditions of your working relationship avoids any misunderstanding. I dare to doubt the legal value of an email exchange.
Thanks for your feedback RESOURCEFUL L10 !
Jo
| | | | Edward Potter
Spain
Local time: 11:50
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
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I would never work for anyone that is not able to offer me a contract and I would recommend to always sign a contract before working with a company.
The contract outlines the responsibilities for both parties, so you make sure you are going to get paid and they make sure you will deliver the job.
Each PO is a contract in itself, as it has all the details of the project you are about to work on, so it should always be sent before the files, if possible.
If it is a short one-off for a small company there is no need for all the rigamarole of a long contract. A simple PO will do.
If it is a bigger company, please keep your agreements to 3 pages or less. We translators tend to read everything and if you give us 10 pages of yadda-yadda you are already in our doghouse.
[Edited at 2021-06-23 11:04 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| You said I could ask anything so.... | Jun 23, 2021 |
...what is vendor management?
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Thomas Pfann
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:50
Member (2006)
English to German
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| Frequently asked question | Jun 23, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
...what is vendor management?
Unsurprisingly, this was one of the first questions in this thread and has already been answered:
RESOURCEFUL L10 wrote: Robert Rietvelt wrote:
...... but what is 'vendor management' in the context of translation? We are in charge of the company's database: making sure it is up-to-date and has all the information and vendors the company needs to perform successfully. We take care of the vendors building long-term business relationships and engaging with them regularly. We recruit vendors and support project managers on projects (quotes/live). We monitor costs so the company is profitable by negotiating with vendors and reporting regularly to the upper manager of the company. In some companies, we also monitor the vendors' performance making sure feedback is given and the desired results are achieved.
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I’ve been translating for 35 years, first in Belgium and since 2016 in Portugal (my home country). Over the years I only had to take legal action against 2 clients for non-payment. In both cases, the problem was quickly solved after my lawyer's intervention on the basis of the emails exchanged. I have 12 very regular customers (direct clients and translation agencies), one of them is my longest-standing customer: 20 years. Only half of these customers send formal POs and I only have a signed c... See more I’ve been translating for 35 years, first in Belgium and since 2016 in Portugal (my home country). Over the years I only had to take legal action against 2 clients for non-payment. In both cases, the problem was quickly solved after my lawyer's intervention on the basis of the emails exchanged. I have 12 very regular customers (direct clients and translation agencies), one of them is my longest-standing customer: 20 years. Only half of these customers send formal POs and I only have a signed contract with one of them. On the other hand, I have a large folder filled with signed NDAs and contracts sent by agencies with which work never materialized… ▲ Collapse
| | | | TonyTK
German to English
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| Same here, Teresa | Jun 23, 2021 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
I’ve been translating for 35 years, first in Belgium and since 2016 in Portugal (my home country). Over the years I only had to take legal action against 2 clients for non-payment. In both cases, the problem was quickly solved after my lawyer's intervention on the basis of the emails exchanged. I have 12 very regular customers (direct clients and translation agencies), one of them is my longest-standing customer: 20 years. Only half of these customers send formal POs and I only have a signed contract with one of them. On the other hand, I have a large folder filled with signed NDAs and contracts sent by agencies with which work never materialized…
I've been at it for 40 years now and have never had payment problems to speak of, never seen a PO or a contract (but I did sign one NDA years ago, and I used Transit once in 1990). All it means is that we're old (school).
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Sadek_A wrote:
How often do you apply your personal preference(s) and/or prejudice(s) in selection of vendors?
If any, kindly do list classifications of such biases, whether in descending or ascending order; how they operate; and, how you -and the company, assuming they're onto/filled into the situation- make peace with such choices?
Thanks
Each company has a list of rules heir vendors need to fulfil and the VMs need to stick to those rules for example years of experience, education, native language, location, price, etc. The job should be objective and there shouldn't be room for any personal preferences when choosing a vendor over another.
The only time I can think of something like that happening, could be when referring/recommending a vendor, but still, I wouldn't trust an employee that uses their own judgement to make work decisions. We get paid by the company to follow their rules to success, not to apply our own.
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Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: RESOURCEFUL L10 wrote:
and their objectives involve improving margins.
We are trying hard to make companies understand that vendors are more important than that, but it is a slow change that hopefully will happen in the future.
I'm just about to fire one of my "clients" who are literally now taking the proverbial... no respect for their valuable "resources", as you would say. I understand trying to reduce margins, but the relationship should be that of a fruitful collaboration in order to offer the best product at the correct price, for both. Unfortunately, this collaboration is heavily skewed towards the agency/client. Examples? Using CAT tools to impose discounts, migrating to PEMT to improve margins but reducing quality, using silly and highly complex platforms to make PMs' lives a lot easier but complicating and in some cases totally eliminating any interactions with the freelancers. Migrating from functionality-rich CAT tools to cloud ones with poor usability and minimal functions. Shall I continue? We feel like cows at the cattle market. It's really time you wake up and explain your clients what translation is really about. It's really depressing. [Edited at 2021-06-22 13:21 GMT]
If the collaboration doesn't fit you and your business values, definitely, stop working with them. Some translation companies also stop collaboration with end clients that don't meet their expectations, but only regular vendors working on those accounts are generally notified when it happens.
I read somewhere in the Nimdzi website that there were around 1,800 new translation companies created in 2018 in the UK alone! Apart from being insane, it means there are plenty of clients to choose from who might share your values and work the way you want to work.
As an employee, if I don't like my employer, I would go and look for another job, so I completely understand.
| | | | | would you... | Jun 24, 2021 |
work with a client who has a "pay your vendors as little as possible" policy? You were talking about efficiency and therefore cutting the rates offered to your vendors - this is part of your job. I'm sure you don't like it, but where would you draw the line? Personally, as an agency, I would be looking at increasing the rate I pay my best "vendors" in order to make sure they continue to offer their services to me. Not slashing them. Thoughts?
[Edited at 2021-06-24 11:33 GMT]
| | | | | Some questions | Jun 26, 2021 |
I definitely have a more positive view of vendor managers than many others here it seems. Generally the VMs I work with are there for negotiations, feedback, holiday planning and all those things that come up around the daily stuff that the PMs handle. Works for me!
Carmen, what would you say is your general "timeline" and how many things are on your desk at the same time? For instance, mine is generally less than 2 weeks from "project comes in" to "project is ticked off the list", ... See more I definitely have a more positive view of vendor managers than many others here it seems. Generally the VMs I work with are there for negotiations, feedback, holiday planning and all those things that come up around the daily stuff that the PMs handle. Works for me!
Carmen, what would you say is your general "timeline" and how many things are on your desk at the same time? For instance, mine is generally less than 2 weeks from "project comes in" to "project is ticked off the list", but I'll have several projects in my list at the same time, and of course to-dos like bookkeeping etc. are a regular recurrence.
I know from some vendor managers that their projects can look like "recruit a pool of trustworthy translators for combination X and specialty field Y" or "handle feedback for Z", "negotiate with A and B", "get holiday schedule for major account B".
I'd be curious how much juggling goes on and how often you can tick something off the list. Also, who you deal with most within the organisation: does VM get tot tell sales that "no, we don't actually have the people to deliver what you are selling" or is there not much contact?
Thanks for sharing a bit about your day-to-day! ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sadek_A
Local time: 13:50
English to Arabic
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RESOURCEFUL L10 wrote:
Each company has a list of rules heir vendors need to fulfil and the VMs need to stick to those rules for example years of experience, education, native language, location, price, etc. The job should be objective and there shouldn't be room for any personal preferences when choosing a vendor over another.
The only time I can think of something like that happening, could be when referring/recommending a vendor, but still, I wouldn't trust an employee that uses their own judgement to make work decisions. We get paid by the company to follow their rules to success, not to apply our own.
Thank you for answering.
Granted, I don't know who you are, nor whether you're female or male.
But, I'm guessing from your answer that it never happens to choose, say, a single-mother vendor with lesser quality and/or higher rate over a dependents-less single male with higher quality and/or lesser rate (assuming you were read into their status, of course)?
No considerations whatsoever of promoting company's image through employing ethnicities, minorities, religious-symbols wearers, etc., for the mere purpose of that promotion, regardless of those vendors' quality (assuming they charge low, of course)?
No political/international relations/global sanctions factoring into your choices?
I can go on and on with examples, but you get the gist.
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| I don't think so. | Jun 27, 2021 |
Sadek_A wrote: RESOURCEFUL L10 wrote:
Each company has a list of rules heir vendors need to fulfil and the VMs need to stick to those rules for example years of experience, education, native language, location, price, etc. The job should be objective and there shouldn't be room for any personal preferences when choosing a vendor over another.
The only time I can think of something like that happening, could be when referring/recommending a vendor, but still, I wouldn't trust an employee that uses their own judgement to make work decisions. We get paid by the company to follow their rules to success, not to apply our own. Thank you for answering. Granted, I don't know who you are, nor whether you're female or male. But, I'm guessing from your answer that it never happens to choose, say, a single-mother vendor with lesser quality and/or higher rate over a dependents-less single male with higher quality and/or lesser rate (assuming you were read into their status, of course)? No considerations whatsoever of promoting company's image through employing ethnicities, minorities, religious-symbols wearers, etc., for the mere purpose of that promotion, regardless of those vendors' quality (assuming they charge low, of course)? No political/international relations/global sanctions factoring into your choices? I can go on and on with examples, but you get the gist.
I don't know of any company that does. I never know the personal life of the vendors when I recruit them, only what is mentioned in their CV, but I wouldn't take their marital status or the number of children they have as a factor on how well they can do the job.
I am aware that some companies in some countries like the USA might not work with anyone based in some specific countries, but that list is usually found online and it is public for each county. If that is the case, it is a company-wide rule, not a VM-specific rule.
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Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote:
work with a client who has a "pay your vendors as little as possible" policy? You were talking about efficiency and therefore cutting the rates offered to your vendors - this is part of your job. I'm sure you don't like it, but where would you draw the line? Personally, as an agency, I would be looking at increasing the rate I pay my best "vendors" in order to make sure they continue to offer their services to me. Not slashing them. Thoughts?
[Edited at 2021-06-24 11:33 GMT]
It depends, we know we work with human beings, however, we expect them not to take abusive rates if they think to be so. We can't improve their business values for them.
Personally, if the company treated their vendors very badly, I would try and look for another job ASAP Because it probably means they won't treatment very well as an employee.
Also if a colleague comes to me with a project that offers a very low rate for the vendors, I would let them know the rate is too low and they might not be able to place it, but we still need to try as it is part of our job/upper management wants so.
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Susan van den Ende wrote:
I definitely have a more positive view of vendor managers than many others here it seems. Generally the VMs I work with are there for negotiations, feedback, holiday planning and all those things that come up around the daily stuff that the PMs handle. Works for me!
Carmen, what would you say is your general "timeline" and how many things are on your desk at the same time? For instance, mine is generally less than 2 weeks from "project comes in" to "project is ticked off the list", but I'll have several projects in my list at the same time, and of course to-dos like bookkeeping etc. are a regular recurrence.
I know from some vendor managers that their projects can look like "recruit a pool of trustworthy translators for combination X and specialty field Y" or "handle feedback for Z", "negotiate with A and B", "get holiday schedule for major account B".
I'd be curious how much juggling goes on and how often you can tick something off the list. Also, who you deal with most within the organisation: does VM get tot tell sales that "no, we don't actually have the people to deliver what you are selling" or is there not much contact?
Thanks for sharing a bit about your day-to-day!
Obviously, the more I can do in a day, the better for my employer
Yes, that is right. There will be a few short term (same day/same week) tasks to take care of like vendors asking questions, or specific things we need to check and also long term (weeks/months) like recruitment, database update, reporting on costs, etc. I usually have about 60 e-mails a day on a busy period with different requests from my colleagues and vendors. We also have the typical company meetings, regular evaluations, and calls with different vendors on a regular basis.
Multitasking is a key skill for VMs and I usually have a to-do list for every day to make sure I don't forget anything.
The power of the VM team depends on the company, but usually no, we have no say on what is going on in the company. We try to encourage PMs to distribute work evenly, for example, and advice on how long it might take to recruit new vendors for a certain client/project, but they rarely listen to us, unfortunately.
We have a VM specific monthly meet-up at the moment, where we discuss all these things and we are trying to make companies everywhere understand how important our role is within the industry.
My personal opinion: we should be able to say no/yes to new clients or spontaneous requests as we are the ones managing the database and know every vendor in it.
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