Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Vendor Management: Tips, Tools, and Resources

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Hello all,

This week we are taking a look at vendor management, prompted by a terrific presentation offered by Emily Perry of the University of Arizona for the EDUCAUSE WIT August monthly webinar. The diagram below is one she displayed and she referenced the work of an internet2 committee as a great resource.

For SUNY libraries, vendor management is usually a part of someone's larger job, and something we learn about on the fly. That means, most of us can use all the help we can get to keep learning more.

For IT areas, there can be staff with more formal practice training to assign, but not always. Balancing Budgets (managing costs and vendor management) is #9 on the EDUCAUSE top 10 for 2024 which is clear recognition that this area demands attention. And then, SUNY procurement policies and guidelines are complex to say the least!

Community Framework for IT Vendor Management

Here are a few more resources to help you grow your expertise:

And, here are a few great tips from Mike Notarius (CIO of SUNY ITEC), who spends a great deal of his time on vendor management!

  • Communication with vendors and stakeholders is key.
  • Negotiation isn’t only about money / cost.
  • Set reasonable expectations.
  • If you have access to services such as Gartner, they can provide additional value / insight.
  • Use Educause resources.
  • Use SUNY Lists to see what others are doing/ have done, etc.
  • See if there are any vendor communities (better if customer owned / run, rather than vendor).
  • Use the power of SUNY (or your organization) when negotiating. If the vendor sees a larger potential (does not have to be day one), you can use that to your advantage and to theirs.
  • Approach the vendor as “partners”. Be: Honest, Direct, Transparent, Moral, Empathetic.
  • IN NYS, there is one party consent, record your conversations with vendors. Best to use a tool that indexes based on words and time.
  • Check with your legal team before using / considering using AI for meetings. That information could potentially go places you do not want it to go.
  • If negotiating more than one year, work with your procurement to find the best option for locking in pricing.
  • Consider the ability to extend the term as part of your agreement if appropriate / desired.
  • Reference NYS / SUNY Procurement and know that OSC typically will not approve escalations of 5%, of course always start at 0% when negotiating, and provide the value proposition.
  • Always remember we have the opportunity to address a larger audience in SUNY whether employees, students, etc.… That provides tools in the toolbox to negotiate as well.
  • Don’t underestimate the worth of your campus / SUNY brand. SUNY is the largest comprehensive system in the world. This gives the vendor bragging rights and gives you leverage.
  • Look for the win/ win/ win in every conversation / negotiation etc.
  • Do not forget about implementation, training and operational aspects and see what the vendor has to offer / help in those areas. Those can be negotiation points as well.
  • Verify / vet their support, understand if they have 24x7 or ?
  • Also look to understand the Service Level Agreements and Operational Level Agreements.
  • Note, that initial response is usually fast, but it is the follow up interactions that are critical to understand.
  • Ensure you have ways to escalate within support and with your salesperson. Especially, make sure they understand the impact, scope, scale of the incident for broken things.

Thanks Mike for these great tips!

All the best,
Holly

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