When a Key Vendor Abandons Your Business

For any of you who run your own small business (or even if you are managing a group within a larger organization), what do you do if and when a long-time trusted vendor suddenly goes dark without warning and effectively ‘abandons’ your business? Unfortunately, this happened to me recently; honestly it was pretty scary and frustrating.

My web site is my primary identity in the online world and is akin to being my business partner in a certain sense. I had been working with a long-time vendor to manage my site maintenance and back-end hosting and IT requirements for the past several years. For the most part this relationship worked like clockwork; she had been reliable and responsive to me the whole time. But oddly, one day a couple of weeks ago I went to my site to look something up and the site was down.

I attempted to reach her in every way I knew how but her e-mails were bouncing, her phone was disconnected, and her own company web site was down along with mine. I had no alternate contact info for anyone else on her team, and didn’t know anyone we shared in common who might know of her whereabouts. I had no idea what happened to her (still don’t as I write this) – but in the meantime my site was down and inaccessible.

Thankfully, my business coach came from an agency and graphic design background – and had some web site and IT chops I was missing. She plunged into the situation on my behalf (despite it being the Holidays and her having young children) – it was like surgery. Within a week my site was back up; what a relief!! :)

Here are some insights and learnings I’d like to share that hopefully will blunt the impact if something similar ever happens to you and your business. Maybe some of this advice is obvious, but as we start a new year it can’t hurt to be mindful:

1. Remain Calm and Communicate Professionally

• Gather all relevant information about the situation. Is the abandonment sudden, or was there any warning?
• Reach out to the vendor to seek clarity. Sometimes, miscommunication or external factors could be at play. Try to understand their reasons if possible; was there an illness to them or to a key family member?
• Maintain a professional tone. Avoid being confrontational, as it could hinder a potential resolution.

2. Activate Contingency Plans

• If you are unable to reach your primary vendor, have a backup vendor or alternative in place and transition to them as quickly as possible.
• If no contingency exists, start sourcing new vendors immediately. Reach out to your contacts for trusted referrals and resource recommendations.

3. Analyze and Mitigate the Impact

• Identify how the vendor’s abandonment affects your operations.
• What services were they providing?
• Prioritize tasks or areas of the business most affected and allocate resources to mitigate damage – and initiate recovery as needed.
• If need be, hire a temporary professional to stabilize the situation until you find a permanent solution a new trusted provider.
• Back up your site immediately to ensure retention of all data and assets. Having access to a back-up at all times without vendor involvement is wise.
• Once you regain control (if with a site), have the new team audit it to assess any security vulnerabilities, outdated plug-ins or code, performance issues.

4. Negotiate Short-Term Solutions

• Partner with other resources and providers to temporarily fill the gap.
• Consider short-term agreements with a different vendor until you find a permanent solution that works best for your business.

5. Learn and Strengthen Vendor Relationships

• Use this experience as a learning opportunity. Build redundancy into your supply chain and develop stronger contracts and have back-up contacts.
• Foster relationships with multiple vendors to avoid over-reliance on one partner.

?6. Establish and Maintain Better Processes (SOP)

• Seek vendors with proven reliability and a track record of success and satisfied clients; and assess their compatibility with your business values.
• Create systems to track vendor performance and build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships that you can rely on.
• Ensure future vendors sign contracts with clear deliverables, timelines, and penalties for non-performance. Be sure to have multiple points of contact!
• Always retain access and ownership of all accounts (domain, hosting, CMS). Only grant vendors temporary or limited access as needed.
• Set up automated backups and store them in a secure location (e.g., cloud storage).

10. Reflect and Adapt

• Reflect on why this situation occurred. Could there have been signs you missed, or changes you could make to prevent it in the future? In my case, I didn’t want to have to be an IT expert and delegated without consideration.
• Ensure you have access to third parties and control over your website providers (i.e. hosting, domain registration, and any CDN providers). If you are in touch with the vendor, ask for project/site status and request they transition access to any third parties if you don’t already have it yourself.
• Adapt your business processes to include stronger vendor management practices on an ongoing basis.

Given the efforts of my savvy, resourceful business coach my site was back up and running a few days ago (a Christmas miracle!), but this whole experience put a lot of stress on my holidays that I wasn’t anticipating. I hope you’ll take some of these tips to heart, and that they will help you avoid similar grief in the future. Wishing you a very Happy New Year – may it bring you smooth sailing on all fronts.

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