Vendor Management Research Center
Use Info-Tech’s vendor management tools, templates, and processes to improve performance, reduce risk, and maximize return on investment.
Talk to an AnalystTo avoid cost overruns, poor vendor performance, and customer dissatisfaction, IT organizations need to establish capabilities for controlling costs, reducing vendor-related risks, and ensuring vendors meet performance expectations.
Use our systematic approach to establish a solid foundation for your vendor management initiative, meet strategic objectives, and increase the value of your vendor relationships.
Five Common Vendor Management Pillars
As the vendor landscape becomes more complex, with vendors playing a more significant and critical role in many organizations, a multifaceted approach is required to maximize value and minimize risk.
Info-Tech has identified five key areas to consider when optimizing your vendor ecosystem:
Risk Management
Manage vendor risks proactively. Guard against regulatory, security, operational, reputational, legal, and financial risks. Establish risk tolerance metrics to protect your organization.
Financial Management
Analyze your spending to decrease costs, increase efficiency, and improve vendor relationships. Evaluate and ensure compliance with contract terms to ensure benefits are realized.
Contract Management
Manage vendor contracts across their entire lifecycle. Drive value from the outset, from sourcing and RFPs, through negotiation, contract management, amendments, and renewals.
Performance Management
Assess your vendors' performance using metrics, scorecards, SLAs, and other performance measures. Track achievements to measure progress and ROI and to maintain internal alignment.
Relationship Management
Build strategic and collaborative relationships with critical vendors. Create and implement individualized roadmaps to improve and leverage relationships with key vendors and drive future value and innovation.
Vendor Management
Vendor management (VM) is both a strategy and a process that enables organizations to manage their vendor ecosystem proactively. A vendor management initiative (VMI) can help you reduce costs, manage risk, improve quality, save time, increase efficiencies, enhance vendor performance, and improve vendor relationships. Use our systematic approach to establish a solid foundation for your VMI.
Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.
Jump Start Your Vendor Management InitiativeTransform your VMI from tactical to strategic to maximize its impact and value.
Elevate Your Vendor Management InitiativeStrategy and Sourcing
Strategy planning and IT category management are essential foundational activities that will ensure you’re on the right path to successful vendor relations.
Take a strategic approach to vendor selection while identifying cost-optimizing opportunities aligned with IT strategy and budget objectives.
Leverage your vendor sourcing process to get better results. Discover a proven process for your RFPs.
Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes With a Robust RFP ProcessMaximize your IT investment and increase your ROI with an IT category strategy.
Cut Cost Through Effective IT Category PlanningNegotiations and Contracts
Learning to negotiate vendor contracts can result in dramatic
savings and favorable terms. It’s crucial to negotiate in a way that
prioritizes your organization’s needs and reach an agreement with your
vendor that takes into account both parties’ best interests.
Manage your vendors from the very beginning with a step-by-step approach to negotiating contracts.
Create and follow a scalable process for preparing to negotiate with vendors.
Prepare for Negotiations More EffectivelyLearn how to put your preparation into action to achieve better negotiation outcomes.
Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More EffectivelyAfter negotiations, evaluating the lessons learned helps negotiators improve their skills and results.
Evaluate and Learn From Your Negotiation Sessions More EffectivelyAvoid the pitfalls and gotchas lurking in the shadows!
Understand Common IT Contract Provisions to Negotiate More EffectivelyDiscover the differences between Agile and non-Agile contracts and how to protect yourself.
Identify and Reduce Agile Contract RiskIdentify and reduce performance risk before you execute your next SOW.
Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors AccountablePerfect your MSAs by avoiding disputes, clarifying obligations, and customizing your agreements.
Master the MSA for Your Managed Services ProvidersLearn how to create meaningful SLAs that hold your service providers more accountable.
Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level AgreementsManage your VARs more effectively to maximize their benefits for your organization.
Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller (VAR)Risk, Contract Management & Return on Investment
Reduce your vendor risk while planning for cost reduction, capture the ROI of the VMI, and create a strategy for contract lifecycle management.
Contract lifecycle management, minimizing vendor risks, and calculating the VMI’s fiduciary benefits, including ROI, are invaluable to ensure that your VMI is providing optimum value to the organization.
Promote a collaborative approach to vendor risk management and guard against regulatory, security, operational, and financial risk.
Looking at Risk in a New Light: The Six Pillars of Vendor Risk Management StoryboardQuantify the impact and demonstrate the value that your VMO or VMI delivers to your organization.
Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMOMitigate risk and drive value through robust best practices for contract lifecycle management.
Design and Build an Effective Contract Lifecycle Management Process