Vendor Communication

It is important that RA Specialist knows how to communicate with the Vendors in a certain way that is beneficial for AdvaCare. Communication with Vendors has several important aspects that are described in this SOP.

There are several rules of what RA Specialist can and cannot say to a Vendor.

1. Never mention the words ‘our client’ or even ‘client’ in general. For the Vendor, AdvaCare is the client. AdvaCare has a distribution chain in many different countries, but for the Vendors we are the client who makes the decisions and makes payments. Even in cases when Salesperson mentions ‘our client’ RA Dept. needs to replace it with ‘we’ when informing the Vendor. This is very important for strategic positioning who AdvaCare is in the relationships with Vendors.
2. When introducing AdvaCare to a new Vendor, RA Specialist must describe the company as an American owned, global pharmaceutical company with distribution in around 65 countries all over the world. AdvaCare focus countries are Africa, Middle East and South East Asia. AdvaCare should be not be described as ‘Trading Company’ to any new Vendor. AdvaCare outsources production of AdvaCare branded products to many different Vendors in China and India.
3. When referring to the importers in the countries AdvaCare works with (internally ‘clients’ or ‘customers’), the right terms to use are ‘distributor’ or ‘partner’.
4. Get Vendor information from Purchasing Dept. when contacting a Vendor by email or other messaging apps for the first time.
5. Any questions related to the project that can be resolved internally, should be resolved internally through the ERP Discuss system. Do NOT use the Vendor group chats.

Vendors are often slow to reply to request for documents, or will not give a real answer in providing dates of document completion. In this case, RA Specialist should not sit and wait for the contact from Vendors when documents are completed. It is recommended to follow up at least every 2 days over messages (QQ, WhatsApp) for easier documents. For more time-consuming documents, convince Vendor to provide a realistic timeline and follow up accordingly to the timeline.

The most effective ways to follow up with a Vendor:

• Messaging applications (QQ)
• Phone calls
• If there is little feedback from one of the existing Vendors, consider requesting assistance from the assigned Purchasing Specialist of a project as they are in communications more frequently with the Vendors.

After providing all registration documents, usually Vendors will follow up with RA Specialist to receive the feedback on the registration status. RA Specialist should not ignore the Vendor and should provide feedback. Generally if no development has been seen yet on the status of the project, it is due to the registration process being still ongoing on our side/MOH side. If Vendor requests more detailed information, send a task to BD Salesperson to inform and ask them about the status of the registration. RA Specialist should always stay polite with the Vendor as it is possible the same Vendor will be needed in future.