Choose flexible, short-term, performance-based vendor agreements with clear exit clauses to allow for relationship termination when necessary. Diversify your vendor base to encourage competitive pricing and service quality. Prioritize data portability and open standards to ensure interoperability across platforms. Conduct pilot tests before committing long-term, enabling you to evaluate vendor suitability. Regularly review vendor performance against service levels and costs, and use competitive bidding for fair selection. Invest in internal capabilities, such as training and proprietary systems, to reduce dependency on external vendors.

Few additional aspects to consider: 1) Every contract should have an exit clause based on vendor performance, change of market conditions or period of engagement with a specific vendor. 2) Split the total requirement of services and/or products (where possible) across top 2 or 3 vendors based on vendor performance and ranking. This also builds in back up mechanism or helps build alternate sources. 3) Vendor evaluation should be done periodically based on services delivered, that should lead to re-ranking of vendors based on transparent performance evaluation parameters. 4) Quality checks of services should be periodically provided to the vendors thru regular communication & should be noted in vendor management system to track records.

- Portability is a key thought to be considered to avoid lock in. - Technical feasibility to portability to be assessed and certified by vendor. - Flexible terms of exit should be there in the contract.Of course contract will see both side's interest,eg. SLA adherence and accordingly exit demurrage will be decided. - Two key roles - Technical SME and Legal to validate above conditions before signing contract.

Every contract, may be a new one or a renovation, must be analized carefully, which means dedicate time and energy to understand every detail mentioned there. A good relationship with sales team on the vendor side is always positive and will help. However, every company has its polices and targets and come of them may conflict with what you and your company need. Therefore, analyze, consider, negotiate and come to a contract that will protect your company and the vendor as well. Such healthy agreement will for sure create a trustworthy long term relationship and will avoid lock in.

Embrace contracts where flexibility and real partnership are inegotiable pilars. Try different operation models, do not be afraid of trying to get things done based on new ideas. Make sure to build a flexible architecture while delivering solutions. This simple principle will help you whenever you need to change vendors.

To avoid vendor lock-in, standardize processes and maintain ownership of critical data and tools. In a recent project, using vendor-agnostic platforms like Jira for project management reduced dependency by 30%. Regularly benchmarking vendor performance ensures flexibility to switch if needed while maintaining seamless operations.

We prioritise strong, collaborative vendor relationships with clear contractual terms. Our contracts ensure ownership of all intellectual property, continuous access to relevant materials, and flexibility to avoid vendor lock-in. This safeguards our interests and secures optimal business outcomes.