Eight vendors, eight contracts, eight invoice formats, eight WhatsApp groups — and one facility manager reconciling it all. Vendor consolidation is the highest-ROI project most building operators haven’t formally run. Here is a playbook that works without burning relationships or service quality.
Step 1: Inventory reality, not contracts
List every vendor actually working in the building — including the pest-control firm on an expired PO and the lift AMC inherited from the developer. For each: scope, contract dates, SLA (if any), monthly value, and who signs off their work. The gaps you find here are the business case.
Step 2: Measure before you consolidate
You can’t negotiate what you can’t measure. Put every vendor’s work orders, response times and proof-of-work on one system for 60–90 days. Two things always emerge: one or two vendors are quietly excellent, and one or two invoice for more presence than the attendance data supports.
Step 3: Consolidate scopes, not just suppliers
The savings aren’t only in fewer margins — they’re in fewer interfaces. Bundle scopes that share people and tools (housekeeping + pantry + waste; HVAC + electrical + plumbing under one MEP contract) and keep genuinely specialist scopes (lifts, fire, façade) separate. Target: 5–8 vendors becomes 3–4 without a single monopoly.
Step 4: Make the SLA the contract
Response and resolution times per priority, coverage rosters, proof-of-work requirements (photos, checklists, attendance with GPS), penalty and bonus bands, and a monthly scorecard both sides can see. If the SLA lives in an annexe nobody opens, you’ve consolidated invoices, not performance.
Step 5: Run the handover like a project
Overlap the incoming vendor for two weeks, transfer asset registers and open work orders on the system (not by email), keep the leaving vendor’s statutory records, and communicate to tenants before the uniforms change. Most consolidation horror stories are handover stories.
What good looks like a year later
- One dashboard showing every vendor’s SLA compliance and cost per building
- Invoices auto-verified against attendance and completed work orders
- Vendor scorecards driving renewal conversations, not gut feel
- 10–20% direct cost reduction — and far fewer surprises
Facyliti’s Vendor & Procurement capability gives you the directory, contracts, scorecards and invoice-to-evidence matching to run this playbook — and the operational data to renegotiate from strength. Talk to us.
