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IT leaders are challenged in starting a centralized vendor management office or initiative by lack of funding for FTEs, failed or false starts, and the absence of proven ROI.
IT leaders lack the knowledge or don’t have the time available to identify short-term gains that provide the foundation for long-term strategy and sustainable success of a vendor management initiative (VMI).

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Obtain quick wins and visible results. Invest your vendor management efforts where they can deliver the best return; focus on the vendors most important to your business. Classify and prioritize your vendors to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Vendor management must be an IT strategy. Solid vendor management is an imperative – IT organizations must develop capabilities to ensure that services are delivered by vendors according to service level objectives and that risks are mitigated according to the organization's risk tolerance.
Visibility into your IT vendor community. Understand how much you spend with each vendor and rank their criticality and risk to focus on the vendors you should be concentrating on for innovative solutions.
Effectively manage cost and increase net profits. Maximize the return on investment of your vendors by tracking, capturing, and reporting value created. Capture and report business value created from your vendor management initiative by reporting improvements or savings in money, performance, time, and reducing risk.
Choosing the right vendors isn’t enough. Procuring valuable products and services can yield immediate visible benefits. But it’s the relationship with the vendor that ensures that benefits are sustained over the long run.

Impact and Result

Identify quick VMI wins with an executable “first 100 days” project plan.
Take a proactive approach to managing your vendors to help negotiate collaborative relationships where everyone’s best interests are accommodated.
Standardize your processes for transitioning in new vendors, maintaining communications, and monitoring a vendor’s performance.
Identify your actual strategic vendors to concentrate your initial vendor management activities.
Clarify what is in scope and out of scope of your VMI.
Identify areas of improvement for assessing vendor risk.

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should jump start a vendor management initiative, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Executive Brief

1. Define your vendor management initiative

Define your vendor management initiative.

2. Evaluate your current vendor management initiatives

Evaluate the current state of your vendor management initiatives.

3. Create a VMI framework

Create a VMI foundation and 100- day VMI project plan.

4. Activate your VMI to capture short-term gains

Activate your vendor management initiative to achieve short-term wins.

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.

9.1/10

Overall Impact

$172,607

Average $ Saved

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Savant Technologies LLC

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

Best: Phil is knowledgeable about the VMO space, is interested in making the tools simple, was available when we needed to meet. Worst: Phil is in the process of updating the tools; it would be better to have the tools updated on the site so that we ...

Job and Family Services

Guided Implementation

10/10

$61,999

Phil has truly been an awesome partner for us as we build out our VMO. He has supported us far beyond facilitating the VMI workshop. We've since had several analyst calls with him which have varied from assisting us with best practices, process mapping a...

Blommer Chocolate Company

Guided Implementation

7/10

$1,983

Our biggest struggle is bandwidth, so tools and templates are of some help, but actual services (staff augmentation as needed) would be of more benefit.

Shelter Mutual Insurance Company

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,399

The people at InfoTech were very friendly, accommodating and knowledgeable - they truly helped jump start our vendor management initiative!

City of Birmingham

Guided Implementation

10/10

$619K

Steven was great! Very good information.

County of Napa

Guided Implementation

10/10

$30,999

Great session. Frank brought up aspects of vendor management that we didn't think of earlier.

International Monetary Fund

Workshop

9/10

$619K

Best: 1. The actionable 100 day plan 2. Facilitating meaningful discussions among diverse participants (in terms of procurement experience, vendor management experience, and types of businesses & vendors they manage) and helping us c...

Shelter Mutual Insurance Company

Workshop

9/10

$30,999

No worst parts - we were very pleased with this workshop, and it was particularly helpful to receive so many deliverables.

Synergi Partners

Guided Implementation

10/10

$2,479

Association of American Medical Colleges

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Phil was the best at guiding us through a very, very long project. He was patient and had many ideas and tools to help. No bad parts of the experience.

State Of Alabama

Workshop

8/10

$123K

120

Phil and Aadil had a lot of VM knowledge to share. They provided us with the tools we need to build our VM program, manage vendors and make improvements to elements of our procurement process. The program organization and delivery of material was very h...

Virginia Information Technologies Agency

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Solid input on Vendor Management would have gotten a 10 if other IT procurement functions like sourcing were covered to the same degree but understand that's not part of the practice. Way to early to estimate impact of a program, if we can even get a pr...

University of Ottawa

Guided Implementation

9/10

$10,000

very clear materials and toolkit. the meeting was the right length, and very knowledgeable resource.

Caribbean Public Health Agency

Guided Implementation

9/10

$1,859

Very knowledgeable team, helpful tools.

Lee County Clerk of Courts

Workshop

9/10

N/A

Best - Aadil and Ted have a wide range of knowledge in this area. There was flexibility with the virtual workshop to accommodate our schedules. Worst - Spreadsheets are easy to corrupt due to embedded formulas rendering worksheet unusable if the user...

Satellite Healthcare

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Thank you! Excellent insights shared by Steven Jeffrey.

Tenneco

Workshop

10/10

$50,000

Steve and Aadil did a great job preparing for and facilitating the workshop sessions, keeping everyone engaged and driving towards active participation, so was very pleased with how well it went. I don't know exactly how much time and money it'll save s...

University of Exeter

Guided Implementation

9/10

$162K

Mission Australia

Guided Implementation

7/10

$12,399

AM General LLC

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

The initial meeting was excellent. Steve was easy to talk to and very knowledgeable about many topics. Worst part was that it was too short...we could have talked much longer...

Arizona Department of Environmental Quality

Guided Implementation

10/10

$6,199

Review of items to follow up on from previous calls. Follow up from past meetings Follow up with Indiana Other clients that might be worth contacting Defining and tracking performane What is carrot and stick (penalty box for late delivery) OD...

Bandwidth.com, Inc.

Workshop

10/10

$30,999

Best Parts: Phil Bode, Templates, Hands-on Training and Education

Alliance Resource Partners

Workshop

10/10

$12,399

Donaldson Company, Inc.

Workshop

8/10

$61,999

The engaging dialog within the group and with Phil and Steve with applicable experience and talking through some real, active use cases and challenges. Also having start to deliverables that we need immediately and will complete within next 100 days for...

Bermuda Monetary Authority

Workshop

9/10

N/A

The workshop was conducted very well and the facilitators were extremely knowledgeable and thought provoking. We are unable to quantify the amount of time saved and financial impact at this time but believe it will be considerable. Michael

Public Utility District 2 Grant County

Workshop

10/10

$123K

I found the workshop and the vendor management extremely valuable, the only bad part is that I am brand new to vendor management and have a large learning curve

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Workshop

10/10

$29,139

Phil and Steve were excellent. They were a perfect Tag-Team that provide excellent input and extremely knowledgeable.

Load More Testimonials

Vendor Management

Get more from your vendors than just a bill.
This course makes up part of the Financial Management Certificate.

Now Playing: Academy: Vendor Management | Executive Brief

An active membership is required to access Info-Tech Academy

Course Modules: 4
Estimated Completion Time: 2-3 hours

Featured Analysts:
John Pinard, Sr. Research Director, Enterprise Applications
James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice

Workshop: Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

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: Define

The Purpose

Define your vendor management initiative.

Key Benefits Achieved

Your vendor management initiative is defined and scoped.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Review top 10 VMI goals.

1.2

Draft VMI mission and charter.

VMI Mission Statement and Goals

1.3

Determine VMI scope.

VMI Scope

1.4

Establish a baseline headwinds and tailwinds.

VMI Baseline Assessment

1.5

Establish responsibilities (RACI).

Completed RACI Chart

Module 2: Evaluate

The Purpose

Evaluate your current vendor management initiatives.

Key Benefits Achieved

Understand the maturity level of your organization’s vendor management initiative.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Conduct VMI maturity assessment.

VMI Assessment and Gap Analysis

2.2

Identify attributes of a valuable vendor.

2.3

Build vendor classification process.

Configured Vendor Classification Tool

2.4

Review and configure classification tool.

2.5

Review vendor preferencing model.

Module 3: Create

The Purpose

Create a foundation and framework for your vendor management initiative.

Key Benefits Achieved

Establish key tools and templates for your vendor management initiative.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Identify VMI “quick wins.”

List of VMI Quick Wins

3.2

Draft “first 100 days” plan.

Draft First 100-Day Plan

3.3

Create business review agenda.

Business Review Agenda

3.4

Build vendor scorecard and feedback form.

Vendor Scorecard & Feedback Form

3.5

Establish organizational structure.

Executive Vendor Brief

3.6

Review sample job descriptions.

Sample Job Descriptions

3.7

Determine vendor risk.

Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

Module 4: Activate

The Purpose

Activate your vendor management initiative.

Key Benefits Achieved

Track and report vendor management initiatives activities as they align with short- and long-term VMI roadmap.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Review VMI ROI calculation and reporting tools.

ROI Tools and Templates

4.2

Review “First 100 Days” plan and finalize.

Finalized “First 100 Days” Plan

4.3

Explore operational templates.

Potential Operational Templates

4.4

Draft high-level strategic roadmap for the VMI’s first three years.

High-Level Strategic Roadmap for the VMI’s First Three Years

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.

Member Rating

9.1/10
Overall Impact

$172,607
Average $ Saved

27
Average Days Saved

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.

Read what our members are saying

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.