At what point do community banks typically find they need a full-time person to handle vendor management? We are $1 billion and have 250-300 vendors and are just now going to an automated solution to assist. However, this topic is a hot one with regulators and auditors and, done correctly, does take time. Currently, we decentralize the responsibilities among the "relationship managers" throughout the bank who own the vendor relationships, and we centralize the oversight and management of the vendor program in my area...risk.

Like any other area, I think you have to take a risk based approach. Determine the number of critical/high risk vendors and go from there. We are about 1.5 billion and we do not have a full time person devoted to vendor management.