Browse Definitions :
Definition

vendor

A vendor, also known as a supplier, is an individual or company that sells goods or services to someone else in the economic production chain. 

Vendors are a part of the supply chain: the network of all the individuals, organizations, resources, activities and technology involved in the creation and sale of a product, from the delivery of source materials from the supplier to the manufacturer, through to its eventual delivery to the end user.

Parts manufacturers are vendors of parts to other manufacturers that assemble the parts into something sold to wholesalers or retailers. Retailers are vendors of products to consumers. In information technology as well as in other industries, the term is commonly applied to suppliers of goods and services to other companies.

A tier 1 vendor is a large and well-known vendor, often enjoying national or international recognition and acceptance. Tier 1 vendors may be both manufacturers and value-added resellers (VARs). A tier 2 vendor is a smaller and less well-known provider that is often also limited in its geographic coverage as well. As a consequence, a tier 2 vendor is generally regarded as a secondary source rather than the preferred source.

Some organizations implement internal units known as vendor management offices (VMO) dedicated to evaluating third-party providers of goods and services, supervising day-to-day interactions and managing longer-term relationships.

The word vendor comes from the French verb vendre, meaning to sell.

This was last updated in March 2015

Continue Reading About vendor

Networking
  • firewall as a service (FWaaS)

    Firewall as a service (FWaaS), also known as a cloud firewall, is a service that provides cloud-based network traffic analysis ...

  • private 5G

    Private 5G is a wireless network technology that delivers 5G cellular connectivity for private network use cases.

  • NFVi (network functions virtualization infrastructure)

    NFVi (network functions virtualization infrastructure) encompasses all of the networking hardware and software needed to support ...

Security
  • virus (computer virus)

    A computer virus is a type of malware that attaches itself to a program or file. A virus can replicate and spread across an ...

  • Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)

    Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) is an advanced certification that indicates that an individual possesses the ...

  • cryptography

    Cryptography is a method of protecting information and communications using codes, so that only those for whom the information is...

CIO
  • B2B (business to business)

    B2B (business-to-business) is a type of commerce involving the exchange of products, services or information between businesses, ...

  • return on investment (ROI)

    Return on investment (ROI) is a crucial financial metric investors and businesses use to evaluate an investment's efficiency or ...

  • big data as a service (BDaaS)

    Big data as a service (BDaS) is the delivery of data platforms and tools by a cloud provider to help organizations process, ...

HRSoftware
  • talent acquisition

    Talent acquisition is the strategic process an organization uses to identify, recruit and hire the people it needs to achieve its...

  • human capital management (HCM)

    Human capital management (HCM) is a comprehensive set of practices and tools used for recruiting, managing and developing ...

  • Betterworks

    Betterworks is performance management software that helps workforces and organizations to improve manager effectiveness and ...

Customer Experience
  • martech (marketing technology)

    Martech (marketing technology) refers to the integration of software tools, platforms, and applications designed to streamline ...

  • transactional marketing

    Transactional marketing is a business strategy that focuses on single, point-of-sale transactions.

  • customer profiling

    Customer profiling is the detailed and systematic process of constructing a clear portrait of a company's ideal customer by ...

Close