Vendor (supply chain)
Encyclopedia
A vendor, or a supplier, is a supply chain management
Supply chain management
Supply chain management is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers...

 term meaning anyone who provides goods or services to a company. A vendor often manufactures inventoriable items, and sells those items to a customer
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...

.

History

The term vendor originally represented property vendors. However, today it means a supplier of any good or service.
A vendor, or a supplier, is a supply chain management
Supply chain management
Supply chain management is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers...

 term that means anyone who provides goods or services to a company or individuals. A vendor often manufactures inventoriable
Inventory
Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...

 items, and sells those items to a customer
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...

.

Typically vendors are tracked in either a finance system
Accounting software
Accounting software is application software that records and processes accounting transactions within functional modules such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and trial balance. It functions as an accounting information system...

 or a warehouse management system
Warehouse management system
A warehouse management system, or WMS, is a key part of the supply chain and primarily aims to control the movement and storage of materials within a warehouse and process the associated transactions, including shipping, receiving, putaway and picking...

.

Vendors are often managed with a vendor compliance checklist or vendor quality audit
Quality audit
Quality audit is the process of systematic examination of a quality system carried out by an internal or external quality auditor or an audit team...

s.

Purchase order
Purchase order
A purchase order is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. Sending a purchase order to a supplier constitutes a legal offer to buy products or services...

s are usually used as a contractual agreement with vendors to buy goods or services.

Vendors may or may not function as distributors
Distribution (business)
Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...

 of goods. They may or may not function as manufacturers
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...

 of goods. If vendors are also manufacturers, they may either build to stock
Build to stock
Build to stock, or make to stock, often abbreviated as BTS or MTS, is a build-ahead production approach in which production plans may be based upon sales forecasts and/or historical demand...

 or build to order
Build to order
Build to order and sometimes referred to as make to order , is a production approach where once a confirmed order for products is received, products are built...

.

'Vendor' is often a generic term, used for suppliers of industries from retail sales
Retailing
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...

 to manufacturers to city organizations. 'Vendor' generally applies only to the immediate vendor, or the organization that is paid for the goods, rather than to the original manufacturer or the organization performing the service if it is different from the immediate supplier.

See also

  • Vendor Managed Inventory
    Vendor Managed Inventory
    Vendor-managed inventory is a family of business models in which the buyer of a product provides certain information to a supplier of that product and the supplier takes full responsibility for maintaining an agreed inventory of the material, usually at the buyer's consumption location .A...

  • Purchase order
    Purchase order
    A purchase order is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. Sending a purchase order to a supplier constitutes a legal offer to buy products or services...

  • Purchase requisition
    Purchase requisition
    Purchase Requisition or Purchase Request is a precise document generated by an internal organization or external to notify the purchasing department of items it needs to order, their quantity, and the time frame that will be given in the future. It may also contain the authorization to proceed...

  • Inventory
    Inventory
    Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...

  • Supply chain management
    Supply chain management
    Supply chain management is the management of a network of interconnected businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by end customers...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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