Operations ยท Core concept
Vendor Management
Vendor management covers choosing language partners, defining what good delivery means before work starts, reviewing performance with evidence, and keeping internal and external teams aligned, so capacity exists when the business needs it.
Also known as: vendor management, supplier management, lsp management, vendor manager
Choosing a vendor
Criteria that survive contact with reality: domain expertise in your content type, capacity in your language pairs, tools that integrate with yours, and pricing structure you can model. References matter more than certifications.
What good delivery means
Define it in writing before the first project: quality expectations per content type, turnaround norms, escalation paths, how terminology and TM are shared and protected. Ambiguity here becomes every later dispute.
Reviewing performance
Use evidence the relationship already produces: QA issue rates by severity, on-time delivery, responsiveness under pressure. A vendor that is fast but floods QA with majors is slower than the numbers suggest.
Common mistakes
Concentrating all volume in one vendor with no redundancy. Judging vendors on rate alone. Skipping performance reviews because the relationship feels fine, until the peak season proves otherwise.