One for PR, One for Interactive, One for branding, One for
direct mail, One for inside sales, One for…need I go on? If your organization
is of a certain size, you have a lot of external agencies and vendors to manage.
From sharing knowledge and distributing strategic direction,
to ownership and territorial issues, connecting and distributing knowledge and work across
your vendors can be daunting. As any agency will tell you, we’re here to help
you achieve your business goals. Still, when multiple vendors are involved, coordination
of effort is key to being successful. Here are some tips to create a foundation for successful collaboration:
- Understand and task
your agencies and vendors to their expertise. Be specific and upfront about roles and
responsibilities.
- Get your
vendors together for a brief meeting at the Account Management level every
month or two. It’s not a project status meeting, those discussions should happen on
the project level between the involved parties. This meeting is to discuss updates to and progress
toward business goals, keep vendors up to date on new programs, discuss
status of mission-critical initiatives, briefly connect on collaboration
opportunities….just learned something new about the business’ direction?
This is the venue to discuss it.
- Get together in person from time to time. The internet is great and conference calls get the job done. But real people are better.
- Create
a central online location where status reports, schedules, documents and
assets can be shared. If there is opportunity for communication outside of
email, so much the better--who wouldn’t want to get some of those “re: re:
re: re:…” messages out of their inbox?
When your vendors are on the same page on your business
goals and have visibility to the activities that are supporting them,
collaboration will be greatly enhanced. Your vendors will have an opportunity
to add value to projects where before they were unaware and unable to
contribute. And coming together as a team promotes comradrie and creates more successful
partnerships across your vendors.
Oh yeah, one more tip: All involved should relish the opportunity to absorb so much information from so many experts. Enjoy that opportunity.