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Question: Why it is important to establish vendor quality standards and a preferred vendor list?

Response: I have had experience with the identification and selection of a preferred vendor list. I will use a project established to investigate revolutionary technologies for Cancer Care and radiation therapy as my example. Firstly, it is very important to establish vendor quality standards and a preferred vendor list to ensure that the product or service selected meets the requirements of the project and the organization. There are many types of standards that come into play including security, performance, cost, maintenance, organizational success, financial stability, and technology. Creating a concise and well-defined requirements document does take a significant amount of time upfront. However, using these requirements to analyze and score potential vendors is very advantageous. As Porter-Roth (2002) notes, suppliers can try to sell a product or service that may not meet a buyer's needs. By utilizing data-driven, objective requirements and analysis, this allows the team to identify a solid preferred vendor list. In the example project, we created a vendor scoring document and mapped each requirement and standard to a score. The vendors with the highest scores were placed on a short list. Further refinement was done using key indicators such as the financial stability of the company and the strategic outlook to condense the list to two vendors.

Using this list saved time later in the project because the requirements had already been communicated and confirmed by the vendor. The vetting was completed in the early stages of project planning to ensure the team and the organization was investing time and money in the best vendor. This project was around a $14 million investment. The team was able to move forward with specific designs with the knowledge that the vendor had agreed to (and signed a contract) to meet all requirements.

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