9 vendor management best practices for 2026

What is vendor management?

Vendor management is the process of managing your relationship with a supplier, also known as a vendor or a third party. 

Vendor management describes how you work with a vendor before you enter into a contract with them, and after. This means it covers everything from vendor selection to offboarding vendors.

How effectively you manage these relationships can determine how much value you gain from them, and how much risk you take on. 

In this post, we’ll cover nine vendor management best practices to help your business increase value and reduce risk when working with suppliers. 

9 vendor management best practices for 2026

1. Select vendors that are right for your business

One vendor management best practice is to be more selective about the vendors you decide to work with. There are plenty of vendors on the market, but not all of them will be the right fit for your needs. 

Working with some will carry greater risk than others, and some vendors will solve your problems faster and more effectively than other vendors. That’s why it’s important to compare vendors carefully and evaluate vendors’ compatibility with your budget, standards, and ideal timeframes.

Some businesses will even score vendors based on a variety of factors, including reputation, experience, compliance, financial stability, and cost. This enables them to identify which vendors they should work with, and which to avoid. 

Need to evaluate a legal tech vendor? Check out this legal tech vendor comparison template

2. Conduct due diligence for vendors 

The next vendor management best practice builds upon the last. When choosing which vendors to work with, it’s important to do your due diligence first. This is an opportunity to identify any risks associated with certain vendors and run background checks to ensure they are reliable and trustworthy. 

The depth of this due diligence will vary depending on your risk appetite, but the process typically involves assessing vendors with the following things in mind:

• Financial security 
• Independent reviews 
• Data and security risks 
• Supply chain disruptions
• Reputation

If you flag any risks during this due diligence, you’ll need to discuss these carefully with your internal stakeholders and proceed with caution when deciding whether to work with them or not. 

In our experience, it's factors such as the quality of our investors, our robust data protection and security measures, and our customer case studies that make us a trusted choice for businesses looking for a CLM vendor.

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3. Establish and communicate clear expectations

To ensure effective vendor management, you’ll need to be clear about your expectations of the vendor. This means defining clear roles and responsibilities for both vendors and buyers and making sure that these have been communicated, and that everyone is on the same page. 

Examples of these expectations include: 

• Scope of work
• Specific and clear delivery schedules
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Detailed pricing agreements 
• Quality standards/thresholds 

By clarifying these expectations ahead of time, you can make sure that the vendor you’re entering into a contract with can actually fulfil your requests. It also clears up any uncertainty about which contractual obligations are due and when, so there are no nasty surprises midway through the contract’s duration.

4. Negotiate favorable contract terms 

Once you’ve decided to work with a particular vendor, you’ll need to put a commercial contract in place to formalize this agreement. 

But it’s important not to rush into creating this contract. You want to negotiate the most favorable terms possible and make sure you have the necessary approval from other departments in the business before you sign the contract. 

Fortunately, there are plenty of vendor negotiation tips that can make negotiating favorable terms easier. Below are some other great guides on contract negotiation that could prove useful: 

• A guide to contract negotiation in 2026
• Laura Frederick’s contract negotiation tips 
• How to prepare for contract negotiations
• 12 successful contract negotiation strategies for 2026
• The best contract negotiation courses

5. Establish clear communication channels

Regular and effective communication is also important for vendor management. It gives you an opportunity to align with vendors on the progress of certain deliverables and share feedback to improve the relationship and flag any problems.

How much communication you’ll need will typically depend on the nature of the contract and how complex the transaction is. Larger, more complicated vendor agreements will likely require more frequent communication. 

Meanwhile, one-off vendor agreements with a lower contract value will usually require less communication. 

6. Centralize your vendor agreements 

It’s also important to review your vendor agreements regularly to track contract performance. This helps to ensure contract compliance and identify any contracts that are at risk of being breached. 

But this can only be done efficiently if they’re stored securely and in one place. Otherwise, you’ll spend most of your time trying to find your contracts, and not enough time performing them. 

Juro’s all-in-one platform enables your team to agree and manage contracts in one unified workspace, making it a great option for storing and managing vendor agreements. To find out more, hit the button below to book a personalized demo. 

Alternatively, you can check out this guide to vendor contract management for more advice. 

7. Monitor vendor performance regularly 

It’s also important to measure vendor performance beyond just what’s in your contracts. 

This means looking at how smoothly a vendor relationship runs and where friction occurs day-to-day. 

This isn’t just important for tracking contracts, but it’s also useful for deciding whether to work with a vendor again in the future. 

If a vendor relationship is proving difficult, or not living up to your expectations, you can use these routine audits to flag this to them. More often than not, they’ll respond to your feedback proactively and action these improvements in a bid to keep your custom. 

"Business-minded lawyers can set up spreadsheets to track the basics. Working with in-house clients, it’s always a surprise the extent to which some lawyers aren’t even taking these baby steps towards accountability and transparency" - Denise Nurse, CEO, DNB Enterprises

8. Mitigate vendor risk 

Finding opportunities to mitigate vendor risk is another vendor management best practice. 

Identifying vendor risk early on enables you to put safeguards in place in case something does go wrong. For example, you could have alternative vendors lined up if a vendor can’t fulfil an order in time. You can also set up contingency plans for unforeseen events, like vendor bankruptcy or a natural disaster. 

Doing this ensures that continue to operate smoothly despite fluctuations in the macroeconomic conditions and other unpredictable circumstances.

9. Establish an exit strategy

Vendor relationships will come to an end at some point, so it’s important to establish a clear exit strategy for when they do. 

You should make this exit strategy clear within your contract. This can be done by including clauses for eventualities including a breach of contract, discharge of contract, and contract termination.

It could also mean developing an offboarding process for when a contract ends naturally, and setting a reminder for contracts that are renewed automatically.

Need help managing relationships with vendors?

If you want tips for managing vendor relationships, it’s worth checking out this guide on what makes a sophisticated buyer. But if you’re looking to improve the way you manage your vendor contracts, you could benefit from Juro’s all-in-one contract management software. 

"There is a great deal more that in-house lawyers and their vendors can do to work together, and this is only set to increase as technology enables closer collaboration" - Denise Nurse, CEO, DNB Enterprises

Juro's all-in-one platform brings all your contracts into one collaborative workspace, giving you real-time, actionable insights into your vendor agreements. 

To find out more about how Juro can enable your business to manage vendor relationships more efficiently, fill in the form below.