Transformational Information Technology Leader | Cybersecurity | Cloud and Infrastructure Operations | Application Management and Development | Project and Portfolio Management | Service Management | Veteran
Vendors are not your enemy or competition. I know most of you are looking at this and thinking, “Well, of course they aren’t.” However, I have seen many teams treat their vendors this way instead of as partners or, even better, strategic partners. Your vendors need to be managed just like any other part of your organization. You can’t treat good, even great, vendors with a laissez-faire attitude and expect they will understand what is important to you. I have had the privilege of working with a handful of vendors that moved to a true strategic partner role, where I could give them a lot of latitude. These relationships are rare and take multiple projects and time to develop. Most of your vendors will need to be led as much, if not more, than the rest of your team. In one of my previous roles, we inherited a managed service provider that wasn’t meeting the organization's needs. Whenever there was an issue, the common sentiment was that we could only expect so much from them, or they would likely replace them when the contract term ended. I found myself falling into that mindset at times because they were letting some basic items fail. However, as a leadership team, we dug into the contract and discovered that the services were not clearly defined in each area. There were no service level agreements, and the billing was almost impossible to decipher. To address this, we: • Clearly defined our needs, including uptime targets, response targets, and acceptable costs. • Emphasized the need for more strategic engagement with me and other directors. • Ensured we were involved in the architecture, deployment, and troubleshooting (when appropriate). After several rounds of conversation, the vendor began providing the services we required and was on the path to becoming a much better partner. They may never become a strategic vendor, but together we developed a solution that met both our needs, kept us as a client, and prevented a massive project by moving to another provider. This experience taught me that while there are times when you need to terminate a relationship with a vendor, it is crucial to first ask yourself, as a leader, if I have done what is required to make the partnership successful. Effective vendor management involves clear communication, setting expectations, and working collaboratively towards mutual goals.
Joe Ratay
5mo
Jeff - Thank you for sharing your experience in working with vendors. The word "partner" is sometimes overused, as it is not simply a nicety, nor is it a synonym for "vendor". The distinction of being called a partner must be earned by the vendor and requires investment on the part of the buyer as well as the seller, as you described.
Tracey Radi
5mo
Very well said Jeff. 👏👏👏 It’s a 2 way street. The vendor has to proactively try to work towards trusted advisor status, while the client has to invest some time in communicating clear expectations.
Shane Healing
5mo
Couldn’t agree more Jeff, well said.
Let me shorten this up a little. In a successful partnership, both sides make money. That means not making stupid or impossible demands of the vendor or the vendor skimping on service to save a couple of bucks. In the software arena, you need to know how the vendors product works so you can work together to sculpt a solution to your problem that works.