End-to-End IT Vendor Management for Greater Efficiency and Security

Between hardware, software, SaaS, cloud technology, and other IT assets, modern businesses can easily have a dozen core vendors. And for enterprises, that number can be even higher. 

To keep your IT business operations organized and streamlined, you need a system for managing the logistical complexities. That’s where IT vendor management comes in. 

What is IT Vendor Management?

It’s the process of managing vendor relations throughout the entirety of the IT asset lifecycle to ensure the following.

• You find a small list of potential third party vendors that offer the exact products or services your organization needs
• You undergo contract negotiation to find the best possible deals on pricing
• The procurement and onboarding processes go smoothly
• Continual performance evaluation is performed to ensure business objectives and quality standards are met
• Contracts are effectively renewed or terminated once they reach their end

IT vendor management can apply to any type of IT assets your organization uses, including:

• Hardware, such as laptops, monitors, and mobile devices
• Software like CRM software, accounting software, and ERP software
• SaaS products like collaboration tools and productivity apps
• Cloud technology, like data storage tools

The primary goal of an IT vendor management strategy is to find the right vendor for every type of IT asset used in operations, negotiate the best deals, ensure compliance and security processes are followed, keep tabs on vendor performance, increase ROI, and build strong relationships that put your business in a position to thrive.

Vendor Management Process

1. Vendor Research & Selection

Typically, the first step in the IT vendor management process is to look at multiple vendors and narrow your list down to just a few options that align with your company’s needs. 

Before ever committing to a contract, you’ll want to have a clear understanding of:

• The specific IT assets a vendor offers
• Industry expertise
• Core features and benefits
• The procurement process
• Pricing
• Ratings and reviews 
• Communication and responsiveness
• Customer service 
• Vendor risks

When performing vendor selection, the key is to ensure that a potential vendor checks all the right boxes, can deliver the IT assets your company needs while staying on budget, and is flexible enough to allow for efficient scaling. 

Ideally, you’ll find a vendor that can go beyond merely providing short-term IT assets and become someone you can build a lasting relationship with so that you can grow alongside them. 

One tip we recommend during vendor selection is reading at least one case study involving a similar company in your industry to see what their experience was like. 

You’ll want to specifically look for key metrics such as company growth and ROI to understand the long-term impact on operational efficiency.   

2. Contract Negotiation & Onboarding

The next phase of IT vendor management is negotiating contracts, which is important for ensuring you’re on the same page from the start. 

Once you’ve decided which vendor you want to partner with, you’ll want to clearly define expectations regarding:

• The IT assets you’ll be purchasing
• The quantity (for hardware)
• Pricing
• Response time
• Security control
• How technical issues will be resolved
• Implementation timeline

When signing a contract, you’ll also want to be transparent about compliance standards, data security, and what warrants contract termination in vendor relationships.

After the contract has been officially signed, you’ll want to execute a structured onboarding process, where a vendor’s IT assets are integrated into your IT infrastructure. 

This usually involves a kick-off meeting, assigning team members as points of contact, overseeing asset configuration, having a centralized resource for communication, and documenting activity if you need to perform audits later on. 

3. Performance Monitoring

No matter how reputable or respected a vendor may be, ongoing vendor performance is critical for ensuring product/service quality and that you’re meeting your business objectives. 

After establishing a vendor relationship, you’ll want to create a list of performance metrics that allow you to objectively assess vendor performance. 

That way, you can determine if they’re holding up to their end of the bargain, if adjustments need to be made, or if you should potentially consider alternative suppliers. 

As for KPIs, here are some helpful ones to assess:

• Overall user satisfaction
• Service quality
• Average response time
• Communication and collaboration
• Compliance 
• Security
• Innovation
• ROI

Many vendor management system analytics tools will update this vendor data in real-time. So it’s important to keep a close eye on what unfolds and perform an in-depth review at least every quarter (however, monthly is often ideal). 

After accumulating a few months of vendor information, patterns should emerge, which should lend clear insights into vendor performance so you’ll know how to respond moving forward. 

If, for example, a vendor has a consistently slow response time to issues, you may want to try an improvement plan. 

And if there’s still no noticeable improvement after a few months, it may be best to part ways. 

4. Risk Management & Compliance

Any time you partner with external vendors, it comes with a certain level of risk — mainly in regard to security and industry compliance. Therefore, a risk management and compliance strategy should be baked into your vendor management process. 

This involves three main steps. 

First, you’ll want to assess the risk level of partnering with each vendor during vendor selection. 

For example, you may want to look at their current cybersecurity methods, including the guardrails they have in place to keep customer data safe, privacy policies, and what industry regulations they adhere to. 

Some common regulations include the General Data Protection Law (GDPR), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Second, set clear guidelines on how suppliers should handle sensitive data during contract management. This can include using strong encryption, requiring multi-factor authentication, and setting tight access control for internal employees. 

Third, the contracts you sign with suppliers must state that they’re required to report any security issues to your team immediately and the chain of command that should be followed when doing so. 

This is important for containing breaches and enabling your team to swiftly respond to an investigation.

5. Vendor Offboarding or Renewal

Eventually, you’ll come to the point where you’ll need to decide whether you’ll want to either end or renew a vendor relationship. And you’ll want to approach this final stage in the IT vendor management process with the same level of precision as you have for the rest of the stages. 

Here, you’ll want to determine if you still need the IT assets you’ve purchased in the past. And you’ll want to perform a detailed review of the vendor’s performance metrics to see if they’ve hit the mark or not. 

If they’ve met or exceeded expectations, it’s usually best to renew vendor relationships. However, you may want to see if you can renegotiate your contract to get better terms. 

Also, you may want to agree to longer terms than your initial contract, provided you’re comfortable partnering with the vendor for the long run. 

Or, if you feel it’s best to part ways, you’ll want to do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition. This can include:

• Setting a termination timeline
• Identifying the specific roles team members will play in the offboarding process
• Ending access control to sensitive data
• Securely transferring information
• Documenting the process step-by-step

When everything is wrapped up, conduct a final round of audits to ensure any loose ends have been tied up. 

What Tools Can Streamline Vendor Management?

Because of the sheer number of vendors that many businesses partner with when managing IT assets, things can get overwhelming in a hurry. That’s why businesses can benefit from using vendor management software, which is designed to automate and simplify much of the process. 

There are several tools on the market, but here are some of our top vendor management system picks. 

• SAP Ariba - This is a one-stop shop tool that helps you find top vendors in your industry, onboard, manage contracts, streamline payments, manage vendor relationships, perform risk management, and much more for greater overall efficiency. 
• Coupa - Equally as comprehensive, the Coupa vendor management system specializes in supply chain planning and design, supplier risk evaluation, IT asset procurement, vendor contract management, vendor performance management, audits, and invoice automation. 
• Procurify - Procurify condenses IT vendor management into a simple, convenient dashboard where you can negotiate contracts, perform contract management, onboard vendors, manage orders, store vendor records, and monitor performance for more effective vendor management. 

Not only can these tools automate many arduous tasks for procurement teams, but they also give you far more control over your entire IT infrastructure. 

And the data generated can go a long way in refining your long-term strategy so you can make smarter, more data-driven decisions. 

Improve IT Asset Management with allwhere

Besides using IT vendor management software, you can dramatically simplify your processes with an IT asset management solution like allwhere. 

allwhere covers the full spectrum of IT asset management, from IT procurement services to syncing IT inventory to monitoring who has what and each device’s location to equipment retrieval. 

And, as compared to many competitors who only work with one supplier, allwhere has an extensive network of vendors, which allows us to find the optimal equipment your organization needs at a reasonable price. 

If one supplier is out of a particular item, we can quickly source it from an alternative for quick, stress-free fulfillment. 

We also handle all of the logistics, communication, and collaboration, so you’re free to concentrate on core business operations rather than back-and-forthing.  

If you’re looking for a hands-off experience for operational relief and less workload to meet the demands of your workforce, allwhere can be an excellent fit. 

Learn more about allwhere’s IT asset management services.