Governance is how you keep a supplier relationship under control once it's live: named owners, regular review meetings, up-to-date key documents, a clear escalation path and a scorecard. SupplierVault gives you one framework for every supplier, applies the right level for each tier, and shows a compliance percentage so you can see who is falling behind.
Where to find it
- Reviews & governance in the Lifecycle menu: the framework and compliance for all live suppliers.
- On a supplier: Performance and relationship tab, sections Performance scorecard and Governance.
- Settings → Supplier scorecard: the scorecard measures and weights.
The Governance framework module must be on (see Modules and forms).
The Reviews & governance page
Tiles count live suppliers only (Active or Under review):
| Tile | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Framework compliance | The average compliance % across live suppliers. |
| Governance meetings overdue | Required meetings past due against each tier's cadence. |
| Open escalations | With the number past their response time. |
| Artefacts missing or stale | Required documents not ticked or older than 12 months. |
Compliance by supplier lists every live supplier, lowest % first, with segment, tier, business owner, next meeting, artefacts, escalations and a red, amber or green compliance chip. Below are the framework settings, which you can edit, and Reset framework to defaults.
How compliance % is worked out
Example: a T2 supplier needs an SRO, a contract manager, two meetings (quarterly board and annual review) and five artefacts: 9 checks. With the SRO named, no contract manager, both meetings on time and four of five artefacts current, it passes 7 of 9 = 78%, which is Amber.
Supplier segmentation
On each supplier set Spend impact (High or Low) and Supply risk (High or Low). Once both are set it is placed in the matrix:
| Segment | Means | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic | High spend impact, high supply risk | Partner closely: exec sponsor, joint roadmap, QBRs, tested exit plan. |
| Leverage | High spend impact, low supply risk | Use buying power: tender, benchmark, consolidate volume. |
| Bottleneck | Low spend impact, high supply risk | Secure supply: alternatives, buffer stock, continuity plan. |
| Routine | Low spend impact, low supply risk | Simplify: frameworks, catalogues, light-touch review. |
Segmentation guides your approach. Meetings and artefacts follow the tier, not the segment.
Governance model by tier
| Forum | Focus | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operational service review (chair: Contract manager) | KPIs, incidents, service requests, short-term actions | Monthly | – | – | – |
| Quarterly performance board (chair: Head of supplier management) | Scorecard, SLAs, risks, finance, change requests | Quarterly | Quarterly | – | – |
| Annual strategic review / executive QBR (chair: Contract owner (SRO)) | Roadmap, value for money, relationship health, renew or exit | Annual | Annual | Annual | – |
Change a cadence (Not required, Monthly, Quarterly, Six-monthly, Annual) or chair on the page. Changes apply to every supplier in that tier.
Required artefacts
The documents that must exist and be updated at least yearly: Contract management plan, KPI scorecard, Risk register, Issues & action log, Change control register, Exit & continuity plan and Relationship map. By default T1 needs all seven, T2 the first five, T3 the KPI scorecard and T4 none. On a supplier, tick an artefact to stamp today's date. After 365 days it shows "stale" and stops counting.
Escalation path
| Level | Our side | Supplier side | Response time |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | Contract manager | Supplier service manager | 2 days |
| L2 | Head of supplier management | Supplier account director | 5 days |
| L3 | Contract owner (SRO) | Supplier executive sponsor | 10 days |
| L4 | Executive committee and Legal | Supplier CEO and Legal | 20 days |
Level 4 is formal dispute resolution under the contract. All of these can be edited.
Raise and manage an escalation
- On the supplier's Governance section, describe what's wrong and the impact, choose the level and click Raise.
- The escalation shows how many days it has been open against its response time.
- Click Escalate to L… to move it up a level. This restarts the clock from today.
- Click Resolve when it's settled.
Overdue escalations appear red in Needs attention and turn the supplier's compliance red.
RACI
A table of who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for 12 activities, from sourcing and award to bank detail verification, renewals and offboarding, across Procurement, Supplier manager, Business owner (SRO), Legal, Security, Privacy, Finance and Service lead. Click a cell to cycle through R, A, C, I, A/R and –.
Sourcing policy thresholds
Also on this page: up to 25,000 needs one written quote and budget holder approval; up to 100,000 three written quotes; up to 1,000,000 an RFP; above that an RFP and executive committee approval. These are used to check sourcing routes. See Sourcing.
The Governance section on a supplier
Shown from the Diligence stage onwards, with an "N% compliant" chip.
- Named roles: Business owner (SRO), Contract manager, Service / technical lead, and the supplier-side contract manager.
- Governance meetings: each forum required for the tier with its cadence and chair, a Last held date and a Held today button. The chip shows "Next …" (amber within 14 days), "Overdue Nd" or "Never held". Next due = last held + cadence.
- Required artefacts, Escalations and Meeting records and actions.
- Change control register: log a contract change or variation with a value. Statuses are Proposed, Approved (records who approved), Rejected and Implemented.
- Savings: log a saving. See Savings.
Record a meeting
- In Meeting records and actions, choose the meeting (one of the tier's forums or "Other or ad hoc") and the date.
- Add who attended, the agenda, decisions made (one per line) and up to five actions, each with an owner (a person or "Supplier") and a due date.
- Click Save meeting record. You need at least one agenda item, decision or action.
Saving a scheduled forum also updates its "last held" date. Open actions carry forward until closed, with red "N days overdue" or amber "due within 7 days" chips. Close each with an optional outcome. The log shows the latest 6 meetings. Overdue actions appear in Needs attention.
Scorecards
Score each supplier 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) per measure, per quarter. The standard six measures:
| Measure | Weight | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Service delivery | 25% | Service levels met, incidents, quality of work |
| Commercial | 20% | Invoice accuracy, price competitiveness, flexibility |
| Financial health | 10% | Financial stability and credit risk |
| Risk and compliance | 15% | Security, data protection, certificates, audit findings |
| Innovation | 10% | Improvements proposed and delivered |
| Stakeholder satisfaction | 20% | How the people who use this supplier rate them, from the survey |
Example: Service delivery 4 (25%), Commercial 3 (20%) and Risk 5 (15%) scored, others blank: (4×25 + 3×20 + 5×15) ÷ 60 = 235 ÷ 60 = 3.9. Unscored measures are left out rather than counted as zero.
- Pick the quarter (the current one and the previous three). Click a selected score again to clear it.
- Add commentary on causes, trends and what was agreed, then Save commentary.
- The header chip shows the latest scored quarter: green 4 and above, amber 3 to 3.9, red below 3. A trend chart shows the last 6 quarters.
- If no scorecard exists, the score is the average of the five Operational KPIs (allocation vs reservation, incident frequency, provisioning lead time, support responsiveness, invoice accuracy).
- Change the measures and weights in Settings → Supplier scorecard. Weights don't need to add up to 100. Use the standard six restores the defaults.
Stakeholder surveys
- In the Performance scorecard section click Ask stakeholders to rate, pick the people and click Send survey tasks.
- Each person gets a task "Rate … for … (1 to 5, takes a minute)" due in 10 days.
- They open the supplier, choose a rating, add an optional comment and click Submit rating, which closes their task.
The average fills the Stakeholder satisfaction measure, unless you've scored it by hand.
Review cycles by department
The stakeholder survey asks for one rating. For a fuller review, where each department scores its own part of a supplier from a questionnaire and you get one combined score, use Supplier reviews. Its scores can be copied into this scorecard for the quarter.
QBR pack
If the supplier has been in a stakeholder review cycle, the pack also has a short summary of the latest one: its combined score, the score by department and the lowest scores.
Click QBR pack in a supplier's header to download a print-ready quarterly business review pack for the latest scored quarter. It covers the scorecard over four quarters and commentary, commercial figures (committed, actual 12 months, invoices this quarter, savings), contract and renewal dates, obligations overdue or due within 92 days, risk, governance (decisions, open and closed actions), service improvements (if switched on) and up to 12 items needing attention. Open it and print to PDF to share.
Which plan includes it
The Reviews & governance page, the Governance section on a supplier (named roles, meetings, artefacts, escalations, meeting records, change control and savings), service improvement, the Performance scorecard section on a supplier record, stakeholder surveys, the scorecard settings, the Supplier scorecards report and the QBR pack are included from the Professional plan.
Good to know
- Meetings and artefacts follow the tier; segmentation doesn't change them.
- Escalating restarts the response-time clock.
- Required meetings never held count as overdue in compliance.
Related
- Service improvement
- Savings
- Contract obligations
- Supplier tiers
- Audit trail and packs
- Supplier reviews: review cycles by department
- Questionnaires