Tom is a trusted advisor on procurement and third-party management to organizations across the United States. Having worked with over 120 organizations over his 30-year career, he has a unique ability to bring creativity and discipline to finding solutions for even the most complex challenges his clients face.A formalized vendor management program is essential to gaining control over how your organization selects, monitors, and works with third-party vendors.
When implemented effectively, a vendor management program reduces risk, strengthens compliance, and improves vendor performance across departments. It also provides the transparency and structure needed to make better decisions about who you work with, how you engage them, and whether they’re delivering the results you expect.
Despite all of these benefits, many organizations struggle to get their programs off the ground.
Stakeholders are often juggling competing priorities or unsure of the value the program brings to their specific area. In some cases, they may even see it as a burden — a layer of bureaucracy that slows things down or creates more work.
Leadership support is often expressed verbally but not reinforced in practice. When executives aren’t visibly practicing what they preach, it sends the message that adoption is optional.
These perceptions, whether accurate or not, can stall adoption and prevent the program from achieving its potential.
There’s good news. With the right approach, you can drive adoption and make vendor management a standard, sustainable part of your operations. In this blog, I’ll review some of the most common challenges, along with practical tips and strategies to overcome them.
Why Vendor Management Program Adoption Sometimes Falls Flat
So, why do vendor management programs often struggle to take hold — even when the structure is sound and the intent is clear?
In many cases, the issue isn’t with the program itself, but with how it’s introduced, communicated, and supported across the organization. Below are some of the most common barriers we’ve seen derail adoption.
- Leadership Support Without Active Sponsorship – Executive backing is critical, but it needs to be more than a sign-off. When leaders aren’t visibly championing the program or holding teams accountable, others won’t see it as a business priority.
- Perceived Lack of Value – If people don’t understand why vendor management matters, they won’t prioritize it. When the program is seen as a non-value ad or checkbox exercise, it becomes something to work around rather than embrace. Stakeholders may ignore key steps, delay participation, or revert to informal practices — all of which dilute the program’s impact and increase risk.
- Key Stakeholders Left Out of the Process – Vendor management touches multiple departments, and success depends on their engagement. If groups like procurement, IT, infosec, legal, risk or finance aren’t involved early — or don’t feel ownership — the program won’t get the traction it needs.
- Unclear Roles and Responsibilities – One of the most common adoption killers is confusion around who’s responsible for what. Without clearly defined roles across departments and business units, critical tasks fall through the cracks or get duplicated.
- Inadequate Training and Support – People can’t follow what they haven’t been taught. If there’s no practical, role-specific training — or if the program feels difficult to use — users will quickly default to familiar, noncompliant processes.
- No Plan to Keep the Program Going – Adoption isn’t a one-time event. Without a plan for ongoing oversight, reporting, communication, compliance monitoring, and feedback loops, even a well-launched program can fizzle out over time.
Identifying which of these challenges your organization is facing is the first step toward addressing the issues and increasing successful adoption.
7 Tips for Driving Long-Term Adoption
Overcoming adoption challenges requires a thoughtful, sustained approach that’s tailored to how your organization works. Below are six practical strategies to help you build and maintain lasting adoption across your vendor management operations.
1. Make Executive Sponsorship Visible
Executive support gives your program credibility — but only if it’s visible and sustained. Leaders should do more than approve the program; they should champion it. That includes reinforcing its importance in leadership meetings, helping to remove barriers, and holding their teams accountable for participating.
Early involvement is key. Help your executives understand how the program aligns with organizational priorities like risk reduction, operational efficiency, and compliance. Their active sponsorship sets the tone for adoption across the organization.
2. Engage Stakeholders and Often
One of the most effective ways to build early buy-in is to actively involve stakeholders in shaping the program itself. Don’t just inform them — engage them. Invite representatives from key departments to participate in program design sessions, pilot new processes, or test updated tools. Their input will help you uncover gaps, clarify expectations, and spot challenges before rollout.
Beyond early involvement, keep stakeholders engaged through ongoing touchpoints. Establish regular opportunities for feedback and dialogue — such as stakeholder roundtables or check-in meetings — to keep the program aligned with operational realities and reinforce shared ownership. When people feel like they had a hand in building the program, they’re much more likely to support and promote it.
3. Tailor the Value Proposition to Your Audience
Stakeholders are more likely to engage when they understand how the program benefits them directly. Business owners want speed and flexibility. Risk and compliance teams want documentation and control. Procurement wants standardization. Tailor your messaging to connect the dots between their goals and what the program delivers.
If the program is positioned as helping them achieve better results — rather than just adding more steps — you’ll get more buy-in and participation.
4. Deliver Practical, Role-Based Training
Training should focus on what people need to know to do their jobs — not just general awareness. Customize training based on the role each stakeholder plays in the vendor lifecycle. Business owners should know when and how to initiate vendor requests. IT should understand their role in security reviews. Procurement should be clear on their involvement in sourcing or contracting.
Make the training accessible through a centralized vendor management resource center: brief videos, process guides, and live Q&As can all help reinforce learning and answer real-world questions.
5. Update Systems to Support the Process
New vendor management programs often introduce changes to how things get done — from initiating vendor requests to conducting risk reviews and monitoring performance. But if your systems and workflows don’t evolve to reflect those changes, users will default to old processes or find workarounds that undermine adoption.
To drive efficiency and consistency, make sure your infrastructure is updated to support the new process. That could include modifying intake forms to capture required data, updating approval workflows in your procurement or contract management system, or configuring tools to trigger reviews and documentation at the right stages. When systems are aligned with the program, they reinforce the right behaviors and make it easier for users to do things the right way.
6. Create Channels for Feedback—and Act on Them
People are more likely to support a program when they feel their voices are heard. Build in mechanisms for feedback, whether through surveys, informal check-ins, or stakeholder working groups. Use this input to identify process improvements and pain points.
Just as important — let people know what you’re doing with their feedback. Sharing how suggestions led to changes (like simplifying a form or clarifying a step) reinforces that the program is there to support, not hinder, their work.
7. Monitor Adoption Through Compliance and Oversight
To know whether your vendor management program is actually being adopted, you need more than anecdotal feedback — you need structured monitoring and oversight. That means tracking compliance with key activities like completing risk assessments, following onboarding procedures, and maintaining updated documentation. Spot checks and periodic testing can also help you validate whether processes are being followed as designed.
Governance plays a key role here. Establish a cadence for reviewing adoption metrics and compliance trends with key stakeholders or steering committees. Use reporting to surface gaps, celebrate progress, and hold teams accountable. When people know the program is being monitored — and that results are being reviewed at the leadership level — they’re far more likely to stay engaged.
Final Thoughts
Driving adoption of your vendor management program doesn’t happen by chance — it takes deliberate planning, cross-functional engagement, and ongoing reinforcement. Whether you’re launching a brand-new program or trying to breathe life into one that’s fallen flat, the key is to focus on alignment, communication, and making it easy for people to do the right thing.
Start by identifying the gaps that are holding your program back. Then take targeted steps — like strengthening executive sponsorship, refining stakeholder training, and aligning systems — to remove friction and build confidence in the process. With the right strategies in place, you can build a vendor management program that not only earns adoption but sustains it — delivering consistent value long after the initial rollout.
If your organization is struggling with adoption, we can help. Contact us to explore options.
