The difference between a good and a bad vendor can significantly increase the time it takes to complete a project.
Managing third-party vendors is a big part of what keeps the telecommunications industry moving forward. Whether you work for a carrier or service provider, you’re most likely working with external vendors. Managing these vendors can seem like a job in itself with many aspects to consider. Some businesses approach vendor management as simply finding the external team or contractor with the cheapest price for a product or service, but it encompasses so much more than that.
If you are not using the best vendors, you are putting yourself at risk. You may have to pay more for unnecessary rework. Slipping project schedule and not delivering to customers on time puts future business relationships at risk. This becomes even more of a challenge when you do not have insight into what work vendors are actually doing when they’re doing it. Vendor management is risk management. The vendor ecosystem is complex and you have to be properly prepared to handle all of its challenges.
If you manage vendors, there are six questions to ask yourself:
- Do you collaborate and communicate with external teams and contractors to complete your projects?
- How do you currently evaluate vendor performance?
- Are you able to coordinate effectively?
- How do you know which vendors are more effective and better for your business?
- Do you compare how long it takes vendors to complete comparable work?
- What metrics are you tracking?
Telecom vendor management with Sitetracker
The Sitetracker Platform has many ways your organization can gain superior vendor management. The best businesses are data-driven and Sitetracker’s Reports and Dashboards ensure you get a live and holistic view of your vendor data. Don’t spend six to eight hours a week pulling data for reports from spreadsheets. Instead, collect data from all of your projects immediately to make the best vendor decisions for your business as soon as possible.
Sitetracker Mobile is the most efficient way to collaborate with your field teams. With this mobile solution, they can get rid of their clipboards. Easily update records and eliminate double data entry. Bring context to field work with easy access to site and project data when and where it’s needed. Do not rely on printouts or going back into the office. Pen and paper need to be extinct so your organization can close out projects faster.
ISCO International uses the Sitetracker Platform to manage their integrations of C-RAN, macro, and DAS project deployments for major wireless carriers. They understood that spreadsheets and disparate disconnected systems were not going to be enough to manage their increasing volume of spectral efficiency projects. ISCO recognized they needed to standardize their project processes and workflows and manage them in a single location from project conception to close-out.
“I was looking for a platform that could provide a single source of truth that could scale — I found exactly that in Sitetracker. Not only does it meet our minimum requirements, but, with Sitetracker, we are able to do complex reporting without any heavy lifting. We are now also able to work seamlessly and in real time with our vendors in the field via Sitetracker mobile.”- Joe Finn, VP of Operations, ISCO International