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.
Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should standardize your vendor management practices, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Prioritize vendors
Create a prioritized inventory of your vendors.
2. Classify vendors
Classify your vendors using Info-Tech’s best-practice C.O.S.T. quadrant.
3. Document vendors
Standardize your approach to vendor management: consolidate vendor information, build an escalation chain, create internal and external scorecards, and document the entire process.
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.
9.3/10
Overall Impact
$8,243
Average $ Saved
12
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
9/10
$2,231
2
Miller Zell
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,255
29
ISG Central Services Ltd.
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
5
University of Johannesburg
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,395
5
Surgical Care Affiliates
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
50
Pima Community College
Guided Implementation
10/10
$29,944
6
Saskatchewan Blue Cross
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
5
Ontario Pension Board
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
First Hope Bank
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Advocate
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Westmoreland Mining LLC
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
American Textile
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
20
Statistics New Zealand
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
National Restaurant Association
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
5
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
Curtins
Guided Implementation
10/10
$43,501
90
Westmoreland Mining LLC
Guided Implementation
8/10
$20,373
2
Vendor Management
Get more from your vendors than just a bill.
This course makes up part of the Financial Management Certificate.
- 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
Onsite Workshop: Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You
Onsite 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 onsite 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