Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You
Maximize the value of vendor relationships.
- As IT services and products continue to become outsourced, IT is increasingly dependent on external vendors, and a transaction-based approach becomes insufficient to guarantee continued value.
- When IT does not manage these vendors properly, performance levels can drop and fail to deliver essential services – and IT is left accountable.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- All vendors are not equal. Invest your vendor management efforts where they can deliver the best return; focus on the vendors that are most important to your business. Classify and prioritize your vendors to separate the wheat from the chaff.
- Vendor management is an ongoing commitment. From contracting to renewal, a successful vendor management office (VMO) depends on your ability to create repeatable, iterative processes that can flourish over many years of diligent work.
Impact and Result
- Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
- Focus on your strategic vendors first, then, year over year, work through every classification of vendor.
- Standardize your processes for transitioning in new vendors, maintaining communications, and monitoring performance.
- Create clear escalation pathways and contingency plans for addressing vendor underperformance.
- Codify your tailored, best-practice methodology for managing vendor relationships.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
9/10
$2,231
2
Miller Zell
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,489
29
The best part, is I was given insight into how to organize and make sense of the risks our 3rd part vendors may present. How to include and engage ... Read More
ISG Central Services Ltd.
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
5
I was really impressed with the knowledge of the InfoTech analyst and would be very happy to engage for her support again. Thank you!
University of Johannesburg
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,300
5
Surgical Care Affiliates
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
50
Not all of the artifacts are designed to work together. Some have overlaps.
Pima Community College
Guided Implementation
10/10
$29,944
6
Saskatchewan Blue Cross
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
5
Vision into vendor management was enlightening. Easy to see the final vision. Overwhelming amount of information and not sure if it will all wo... Read More
Ontario Pension Board
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
First Hope Bank
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Gordana presented several options for us to put a strategic plan in place to address the service level failures in our contract. It's going to tak... Read More
Advocate
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Gordana did a great job explaining the workshop to me, as well as giving me some real world insights. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
Westmoreland Mining LLC
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Great resources to help us vet future VAR partners. The worst part is there's a lot of information to digest and it will take a concerted effort a... Read More
American Textile
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
20
Gordana is a job to work with. She knows I am new to this area, I feel that she will go above and beyond to help me understand Vendor Management.
Statistics New Zealand
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
National Restaurant Association
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
5
It was a very good discussion from start to finish. There was no worst part. We did run out of time, so another 15-30 minutes would have been helpf... Read More
Moog Inc
Workshop
8/10
N/A
N/A
Moog Inc
Workshop
8/10
N/A
N/A
Georgia Municipal Association
Guided Implementation
10/10
$10,000
10
I had the pleasure of speaking w/ Steven and Matthew during this call. Steven provided a lot of quality information regarding vendor management an... Read More
Curtins
Guided Implementation
10/10
$43,501
90
Westmoreland Mining LLC
Guided Implementation
8/10
$20,373
2
Clear communication and valuable tools.
Workshop: Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Prioritize Vendors
The Purpose
Prioritize your vendors based on their importance to the organization.
Key Benefits Achieved
Prioritized list within the Vendor Inventory and Prioritization Tool.
Activities
Outputs
Decide what attributes make a vendor indispensable to your organization.
Prioritize list of IT vendors.
- Vendor Inventory and Prioritization Tool
Module 2: Classify Vendors
The Purpose
Classify your vendors to focus your vendor management efforts.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Classified vendors.
- A completed vendor inventory.
Activities
Outputs
Right-size vendor classifications for your organization.
Classify your vendors.
- Vendor Classification Tool
Complete the remaining fields of your inventory.
- Vendor Inventory and Prioritization Tool
Module 3: Document Vendors
The Purpose
Document key information for each vendor and make a plan to maximize the value.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Consolidated vendor information for each of your vendors.
- A standardized approach to vendor management, comprising customized:
- Vendor scorecards
- Vendor feedback cards
- Vendor review aeeting agendas
- Completed Vendor Management Program Plan and meeting agenda
Activities
Outputs
Create a vendor information sheet for a strategic vendor.
- Strategic Vendor Information Sheet
Create a vendor information sheet for a tactical or operational vendor.
- Tactical/Operational Vendor Information Sheet
Create a vendor information sheet for a commodity vendor.
- Commodity Vendor Information Sheet
Customize vendor scorecards.
- Vendor Scorecard
Customize vendor feedback cards.
- Vendor Feedback Cards
Customize meeting agendas.
- Vendor Review Meeting Agenda Template
- Vendor Management Team Meeting Agenda Template
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Prioritize vendors
- Call 1: Review inventory tool.
- Call 2: Discuss what attributes make a vendor indispensable to your organization.
Guided Implementation 2: Classify vendors
- Call 1: Review Info-Tech’s classification system.
- Call 2: Validate your vendor classifications.
Guided Implementation 3: Document vendors
- Call 1: Review the vendor information sheets and discuss any roadblocks.
- Call 2: Review the vendor scorecards and feedback cards.
- Call 3: Review meeting agendas and engagement plans.
Contributors
- John Alexis, Director of IT Services, GTAA
- Deepak Bansal, Enterprise Head of IT Vendor Management, Envision Healthcare
- Ronald Flockhart, Group Sourcing Head, FirstRand Group
- Carla Di Castro, Senior Global Sourcing Manager, Workday
- Gerry Holmes, Director of IT, Canadian Cancer Society (ret.)
- Rick Johnson, IT Manager, St. Lawrence County Information Technology Department
- Sherif Sheta, CIO Advisor, CCRM
- Stratton Penberthy
- Three anonymous contributors
Looking at Risk in a New Light: The Six Pillars of Vendor Risk Management
Manage Exponential Value Relationships
Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO
Cut Cost Through Effective IT Category Planning
Design and Build an Effective Contract Lifecycle Management Process
Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller (VAR)
Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes With a Robust RFP Process
Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements
Slash Spending by Optimizing Your Software Maintenance and Support
Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Security Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Evaluate Your Vendor Account Team to Optimize Vendor Relations
Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative
Prepare for Negotiations More Effectively
Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively
Evaluate and Learn From Your Negotiation Sessions More Effectively
Proactively Identify and Mitigate Vendor Risk
Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models
Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business
Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A
Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk
Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable
Understand Common IT Contract Provisions to Negotiate More Effectively
Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
Master the MSA for Your Managed Services Providers
Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last