Score Your Suppliers: A vendor scorecard, a payment-terms check, and a pre-call preparation card, run before the next invoice arrives.

Score Your Suppliers is the weekly-rhythm instrument built on top of Vendor Negotiation Playbook (Operator Playbooks 04). It does not re-explain the negotiation framework from the parent book. It installs three weekly tools, sequenced across thirty days, that build the data foundation every supplier conversation needs before it starts: a vendor performance record, a payment-terms position, and a preparation card that replaces reaction with structure.

A six-question diagnostic intake routes the reader to the right starting tool based on where vendor visibility is weakest.

Vendor Scorecard. Twenty minutes a week tracking each major vendor's price, on-time delivery, defect rate, and responsiveness against the previous quarter's baseline. Two worked examples: a West Java snack food manufacturer scoring its packaging supplier, and a Batam electronics assembly sub-contractor scoring a Singapore component distributor whose "no-alternative" status collapses once the data is on paper.

Payment-Terms Review. A weekly check on whether existing payment terms align with current cash position and current vendor leverage. Two worked examples: a food ingredient distributor extending net-30 to net-60 using cooperative-credit replacement math, and a Bandung garment exporter eliminating a 30-percent advance payment on Italian fabric imports through opportunity-cost framing.

Negotiation Preparation Card. Five minutes before any vendor call where the agenda includes pricing, terms, or scope. A structured five-component card that routes the conversation through preparation rather than reaction. Two worked examples: a West Sumatra coffee exporter renewing a packaging contract, and a Makassar cold-chain logistics provider renegotiating refrigerant gas supply against R-404A phase-out timing.

Each tool carries a self-scoring rubric, a decision tree based on the score, and tier adaptations for single-owner shops, mid-tier businesses, and pre-IPO operations. A thirty-day plan sequences the three tools so the rhythm forms without overload.

Written from the seat of an operator running businesses in Indonesia. The Vendor Scorecard, Payment-Terms Review, and Negotiation Preparation Card frameworks apply broadly to small and mid-sized businesses in other emerging markets and in many developed-market SME settings.

What this companion does NOT do

Replace Vendor Negotiation Playbook (Operator Playbooks 04). It assumes the parent book has been read.

Handle quarterly vendor recalibration or crisis-response work; those tools live in the other two op-04 buckets.

Replace a formal procurement system for multi-vendor categories above the op-04 complexity threshold.

Who This Is For

Operators handling vendor relationships without a procurement team who want a routed weekly instrument.

Owners with three or more recurring vendors who want data built before the next renewal cycle.

Mid-tier directors who want a structured preparation discipline before any major vendor conversation lands.

Topics and Keywords

weekly vendor scorecard, payment terms review, negotiation preparation, vendor performance tracking, supplier discipline, SME vendor management, operator playbook companion