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.Getting people to follow vendor management policies and procedures is one of the toughest parts of the job. You can have clearly documented processes, training materials, and leadership support, but still find that employees take shortcuts or bypass standard procedures entirely.
Whether you’re trying to drive adoption of new policies and procedures or simply want staff to follow the ones already in place, achieving compliance takes work.
In this post, I share eight practical strategies to engage vendor management stakeholders and increase adoption of your policies and practices. I’ve organized the tips into two categories: one for teams going through a transformation, and one for those trying to improve compliance with existing policies.
Strategies to Engage Stakeholders During Vendor Management Transformation
Transforming vendor management operations is a major lift. You’re redesigning processes, introducing new requirements, and likely shifting responsibilities across departments. It’s not just a policy change, but a change in how people work.
To improve adoption and make change stick, you need to bring people along with you. Here are four strategies that can help.
1. Include Key Stakeholders in the Design Process
One of the fastest ways to stall a vendor management transformation is to design the entire thing in isolation, then drop it on stakeholders with little context or warning. When key departments like Procurement, Compliance, Risk, Legal, IT, or Finance are handed a new process they didn’t help shape, it’s natural for them to resist or ignore it altogether.
Instead, involve stakeholders early in planning and design to gather input on their current pain points and outcomes they’d like to see. Then keep them engaged by involving them in shaping the outcomes.
An effective approach is to form a cross-functional Change Committee that includes representatives from key departments. This group can preview drafts, flag concerns, and provide feedback. It demonstrates your commitment to engagement and gives them a sense of ownership in the process.
2. Use a Pilot to Build Support and Refine the Approach
Rolling out a transformation all at once can create resistance and rework. If something doesn’t work in practice, you’re stuck with digging yourself out of a hole with stakeholders.
A pilot gives you a safe, controlled way to test your new process with a small group of stakeholders before scaling it. Choose one or two departments that are good candidates for early adoption, and work closely with them to implement the new process end to end.
Use the pilot to refine workflows. When you’re ready to expand, you’ll have proof of what works and a few champions who can speak to the value of the new approach.
3. Engage Leadership to Set the Tone from the Top
Stakeholders take their cues from leadership. If department heads and senior leaders treat the vendor management transformation as optional or low priority, their teams will too.
Make sure your executive sponsors and department leaders understand why the transformation matters and how it supports broader organizational goals. Equip them with talking points, progress updates, and examples they can use in meetings and communications. Ask them to visibly support the effort, not just sign off behind the scenes.
A few well-placed words from the right leaders can go a long way in getting teams to pay attention and participate.
4. Keep Stakeholders Engaged Through Transparent, Strategic Communication
It’s easy for stakeholders to feel left out or confused during a major transformation, especially when they’re unclear about what’s changing or how it affects their role in managing vendors. That’s why communication strategies are so important.
Keep stakeholders informed with clear, targeted updates that speak directly to their responsibilities. Communicate what’s changing in specific processes like vendor intake, due diligence, contract routing, or risk review. Get them prepared for the change, and give them a clear way to share feedback so they feel heard, not just told.
Real-World Example: Stakeholder Pilot Testing
Our client, a large financial services company, was rolling out a new vendor intake process as part of a broader transformation. Previously, departments engaged vendors independently with little oversight, resulting in inconsistent risk reviews and delayed contract execution.
To drive adoption, the team launched a 60-day pilot with the Finance and HR departments, each of which was excited about the transformation. Key stakeholders from both departments were involved early, helping shape the intake form and review workflow. Weekly check-ins gave them a chance to flag issues and suggest improvements.
The feedback led to practical adjustments in the process and the creation of a tailored checklist used as an ongoing job aid. When the process expanded across the organization, the pilot departments became vocal champions, helping others understand how the new process worked and how it actually sped up their intake process.
Strategies to Engage Stakeholders to Improve Adoption of Existing Practices
Over time, vendor management compliance tends to erode. Complexity creeps in, processes get clunky, and new staff don’t always get the training or context they need. What started as a well-designed process can become inconsistent, inefficient, or quietly ignored.
The key is to re-engage with stakeholders and apply practical solutions that remove barriers and reinforce expectations. Here are four strategies that can help you get things back on track.
1. Assess What’s Not Working and Why
When compliance is weak, it’s tempting to just send out another policy reminder. But unless you understand why people are bypassing the process, you won’t fix the root cause.
Use a structured process to identify where breakdowns are happening by reviewing data and talking directly to business owners. Are they confused about when due diligence is required? Do they know who to go to with vendor-related questions? Use that feedback to uncover the real barriers and put targeted strategies in place to overcome them.
2. Provide Targeted, Role-Based Training
Generic training sessions or policy overviews won’t move the needle on adoption. Most people need to know only what’s relevant to their role and only when they need to know it.
Create a tailored training strategy and develop short, practical training that focuses on specific processes or pain points. For example, walk through how to submit a complete intake form, when to flag a vendor for a risk review, or what clauses Legal expects to see in a contract. Offer these sessions during onboarding, in department meetings, or as part of an annual refresh.
3. Make Compliance Easier with a Knowledge Base
No one wants to hunt through a 100-page manual to find an answer. Even well-meaning employees won’t follow the process if it feels like a scavenger hunt.
A Vendor Management Knowledge Base (Hub) serves as a central place stakeholders can go for assistance with day-to-day vendor management. It brings together corporate policies, procedures, tools, and templates, along with curated how-to guides, job aids and learning resources. Hosted on your intranet, a Hub it makes it easy for employees to find answers and get the guidance they need to not only comply with policies and follow best practices.
4. Show What Good Looks Like
Sometimes stakeholders don’t comply simply because they’ve never seen a clear example of what compliance looks like. When the only feedback they get is corrective, it’s hard for them to build confidence in the process.
Highlight real success stories and examples where the vendor management process helped avoid risk, speed up onboarding, or improve vendor performance. Share these stories in team meetings and on your central resource hub. Showing the real-world benefits of compliance reinforces the value of doing it.
Real-World Example: Targeted Training + Job Aids
Our client, an international NGO, had clear policies requiring competitive bidding for purchases over $25,000, but business units were routinely bypassing this by labeling procurements as “sole source.” This created compliance issues and exposed the organization to unnecessary cost and funding risk.
An internal review revealed that many staff didn’t understand what qualified as a true sole source or when competitive bidding was required, in part because the existing policies were vague and poorly written.
The procurement team responded by creating a practical decision-tree guide and adding a simple justification checklist to the intake form. They also ran targeted training sessions for frequent requestors. Within a quarter, improper use of sole source dropped, and compliance with procurement requirements significantly improved.
Final Thoughts
Getting people to follow vendor management policies and procedures doesn’t happen just because the rules are clear. It takes consistent, thoughtful engagement, whether you’re rolling out something new or trying to improve how people follow what’s already in place.
If you’re in the middle of a transformation, focus on building engagement early and using leadership and communication to maintain momentum. If you’re working to improve compliance with existing processes, start by identifying where things are breaking down and make it easier for people to do the right thing.
In both cases, small changes in how you engage stakeholders can lead to big gains in adoption, accountability, and long-term success.
