Hillstrom's Vendor Academy

📖 The Scoop

Twenty years ago, we operated in a top-down managerial environment. Across my clients, marketing departments were comprised of twenty-four individuals, performing every type of analysis and function in-house. Yes, work was outsourced, but it wasn't the majority of work. The marketer was in near-total control of work-flow.The environment of the mid-90s no longer exists. A team formerly comprised of twenty-four in-house marketers is now comprised of eight to ten in-house marketers, and upwards of ten vendors with twenty combined employees. There are more vendor-centric employees managing your business than there are employees managing your business. Vendors are pushing products and services designed to generate profit for the vendor. You need vendors to generate profit for your business. This is a fundamental disconnect that must be addressed.In "Hillstrom's Vendor Academy", Kevin Hillstrom presents a soup-to-nuts process for managing vendors, for holding vendors accountable for business performance, and for turning vendors into trusted "partners". Mr. Hillstrom outlines a one-year process for analysis of business issues. Mr. Hillstrom used elements of this process to great success during his time at Nordstrom, and now shares the methodology with you via this booklet.

Genre: Business & Economics / Leadership (fancy, right?)