The challenge
With almost 30,000 active vendors in its system and approximately 23 new vendors to onboard each week, Chandos Construction, a leading national construction company, faced significant challenges with its legacy vendor enrollment portal. The previous system was an online form that lacked the flexibility and features needed to support the company’s growth and complex operational needs.
“We had numerous technical interruptions, and the service would just stop working,” said Karissa Albo, Manager, Operational Accounting. “It could take days to reset, during which time neither Chandos nor vendors had access it, and operations within the portal would come to a full stop.”
The portal’s lack of customization meant Chandos couldn’t easily update forms to reflect policy changes or provide vendors with help icons and two-way communication to streamline the process. All corrections and follow-ups were handled offline via a cumbersome ticketing system or email, which made the onboarding process slow and inefficient. This created a lengthy, frustrating experience for both Chandos’ team and its new vendors, with some enrollments taking longer than 30 days to complete. The company also lacked critical insights into its enrollment process, making it difficult to track progress and identify bottlenecks.
The solution
Contexture partnered with Chandos to create a new online Vendor Registration System tailored to the company’s specific policies and workflows. This new solution was designed to address all of Chandos’ pain points, providing a seamless, intelligent, and secure platform.
The Vendor Registration System’s key features include:
- Intelligent forms and triggers: The form dynamically adjusts based on vendor type, with triggers that ensure specific policies are applied. For example, a subtrade providing labor over $2,000 automatically triggers requirements for a specific agreement, insurance, and clearance letters.
- Enhanced communication and transparency: Vendors and employees who have requested enrollments now have visibility into the status of applications, and requestors are BCC’d on notifications throughout the lifecycle of an enrollment form up until vendors are formally enrolled. Internal and external commenting features facilitate two-way communication, eliminating the need for offline emails and ensuring a smooth, guided process.
- Automated data validation: The platform validates key information like GST numbers and uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to pull data directly from documents like bank statements and workers’ compensation clearance letters. Vendors are asked to verify this information, which drastically reduces manual data entry and errors.
- Robust reporting dashboard: The portal features a powerful, customizable dashboard that provides real-time insights into key performance indicators (KPIs), such as the percentage of vendors enrolled by days, categorized into different groupings.
- Secure data handling: The portal securely handles sensitive information, with a set policy to archive banking data and a future plan for an aggressive purge schedule after successful ERP integration.
The outcome
The new Vendor Registration System has delivered an exponential return on investment for Chandos, transforming a slow, manual process into a fast, compliant, and data-driven one.
“We set a goal to enroll 50% of our vendors in under five days,” said Karissa. “We’ve far exceeded that goal.”
Chandos has reduced its average vendor enrollment time from 30+ days to under 5 business days for 80% of new vendors, 14% in 6-10 days, and 6% over 10 days. This has significantly improved team efficiency and reduced the workload associated with constant follow-up. The new platform has also enhanced compliance by ensuring all required documentation, like clearance letters, is consistently collected prior to enrollment.
The dashboard has been a game-changer, providing unprecedented visibility into the enrollment pipeline. “We can now see how many vendors we’ve enrolled each month, the min/max process days, and even track the average days to enroll by city and region,” Karissa noted. This data helps Chandos proactively troubleshoot issues and continuously improve the process.
The feedback from vendors and internal stakeholders has been overwhelmingly positive. Vendors now have a seamless, guided experience, and Chandos is positioned for future growth, with plans for direct ERP integration for Viewpoint Vista that will make vendor volume a non-issue.
When asked if she would recommend the portal, Karissa’s response was clear: “Absolutely – 1,000%!”
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