Is Vendor Management part of Procurement in your organization?  

Historically, vendor management has been a decentralized function, handled independently by each product area’s (PA) Vendor Management Office ( VMO ). We are now in the midst of a major procure-to-pay (P2P) transformation aimed at establishing a center-led procurement model. This will help us centralize procurement and vendor management, allowing us to operate as a single, unified organization enabling our negotiations leverage with vendors and streamlining our process.

It depends on the maturity of each organization and their willingness to evolve. I firmly believe procurement is NOT a tactical administrative function - or should not be. IT departments ( but often any category in a firm that was or is largely decentralized) have long vendor histories, of course and while at an operational level, it's important to understand vendor delivery, Procurement very much needs to objectively manage vendor performance to both business goals and objectives (macro and micro levels) , SLA's and contractual commitments.

Vendor Management and Procurement are not part of the same department. Our operational vendor management (OVM) team closely manages, supports, and advises the Technology department in resourcing, services, software, and licensing. OVM also facilitates the contract process between the Technology department and Legal, Finance, and Strategic Sourcing. We adopt different frameworks in the contract lifecycle. For example, Vendor Management uses COBIT and ITIL guidelines and principles, while Procurement uses the CIPS framework.

VMO should sit in Technology and work closely with finance, procurement etc etc. VMO should be strategic and procurement is transactional and the outcome of VMO work.  

Yes