ICBA VENDOR SCORECARD
ICBA has created a tool called the ICBA Vendor Scorecard to assist Member stores in the process of fairly and consistently evaluating current and future vendor partnerships.
Establishing productive, mutually beneficial partnerships with vendors is an essential component of retail success. Each vendor partnership is critical and each vendor partnership should be considered carefully. Defining roles for each vendor in a given category will enable you to develop closer partnerships and will make you more efficient in how you evaluate new partnership opportunities. It also enables new vendors to better understand what is important to win your business.
The ICBA Vendor Scorecard focuses on 20 criteria that can be used to rate and assess each vendor. How each vendor “ranks” is dependent on how each ICBA Buyer values each of the criteria. ICBA is not providing an “absolute” rating system, rather, the Scorecard is a simply a tool for each Member store to use to fit their needs. The Scorecard can also be used differently from Buyer to Buyer in various store product categories.
THE ICBA VENDOR SCORECARD SCALE
The ICBA Vendor Scorecard is based on a 1-4 scale (with 4 being the most favorable and 1 being the least favorable). How you determine what is a 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 is up to you (as long as you are consistent). You also have the opportunity to adjust the “weighting” of each of the criteria to suit your needs and expectations for your vendors (in Column F). For instance, you may feel that MARGIN OPPORTUNITY and LEAD TIMES are much more important than other criteria. ICBA recommends that you adjust the weighting on each criteria accordingly. ICBA recommends that weights are adjusted as following: 100% (no adjustment), 150%, or 200%. For example:
If “Low Minimums” is weighted at 150%, a score of “3” will adjust to 4.5 (150% of the original value)
If “Lead Times” is weighted at 200%, a score of “2” will adjust to 4 (200% of the original value)
FLEXBILE TO FIT YOUR NEEDS
Another feature of the ICBA Vendor Scorecard is the opportunity to add additional criteria that may be important to you. Those additional criteria can be added in rows along the bottom of the spreadsheet and you can weight those additional criteria as you see fit.
You may also elect not to use one or more of the criteria if it is not relevant to you.