Survey of Technology Vendor Management challenges and opportunities in the areas of organization, operations and process for the purpose of improving TVMO productivity.
2. Members of the Technology Vendor Management Partnership
(TVM Partnership) were asked to provide input and participate
in a brief survey to determine the issues & challenges impacting
TVMO’s today. The purpose being to shape group discussions
and drive to create best practices to be shared with other
TVMO leaders. The areas of focus were:
Organizational Challenges
Operational Challenges
Process Challenges
The TVM Partnership is comprised of Vendor Management
leaders representing a broad range of industries. Membership
is confidential and all input provided is anonymous.
3. As anticipated, clear and effective ‘Rules of Engagement’ is the top area of focus for
technology VMO leaders. The emergence of ‘Alignment with Sourcing’ organizations as
the second challenge followed closely by the broadening range of skills required to have
an effective VMO appears to be a new, growing issue.
“Organizational Challenges”
As we will see in the response to ‘Operational Challenges’, technology VMO’s are
accountable for a broadening agenda. This dynamic can be driving the need for
expanded skills and better alignment with Sourcing as there are more areas to be
coordinated: services, hardware, software, telecom/wireless, third party risk, cloud,
development methodology (Agile, DevOps).
47%
47%
58%
79%
42%
42%
53%
TVMO - Organizational Challenges
Range of Skills TPR Monitoring Service improvement
Rules of engagement Sourcing Alignment Level of Authority
CIO Direct Report
4. TVMO Leaders must develop an appropriate mix of governance, service
monitoring and productivity coaching to become a core contributor in these
transformational developments. As a group, TVM Partnership members will
discuss how to best address this challenge and develop best practices.
The discipline of SAM requires effective monitoring of software consumption,
tracking of maintenance and contract negotiations. It will be important to
understand if VMO leaders are accountable for Audit response and
remediation efforts.
“Operational Challenges”
In the area of Operational Challenges, major technology and transformation areas proved
to be of greatest concern. The emergence of Agile development as the primary
methodology, ‘Cloud first’ becoming the norm and the rapid adoption of AI and RPA
automation is having a profound impact. Members also show a growing need for SAM
experience.
5. Despite the growing importance of technology vendor management, complexity of service
agreements and rapidly expanding list of third parties, there is no single tool or platform
today that supports the complete TVMO requirement.
“Process Challenges”
Lack of tools leads to significant manual effort to support the TVMO agenda.
As Third Party Risk and the required monitoring activity expands, it would
seem this challenge will remain.
This lack of tools contributes to the inability to produce standard,
comprehensive dashboards for executives. Perhaps this is a contributor to
the ‘organizational challenge’ detailed earlier.
6. Summary
The TVM Partnership will schedule 3 separate sessions
to discuss identified issues and challenges for the
purpose of developing best practices and base
frameworks which could help other TVMO’s
Once prioritized, perhaps a sub-group will be formed to
drive development of an initial framework for members
to comment.
Once complete, TVMO members will discuss how to
best distribute the recommendations.
Organization Operation Process
1. Rules of Engagement 1. Agile Development 1. Effective VMO Platform
2. Sourcing/TVMO Alignment 2. Impact of Cloud & SaaS 2. Impactful Reporting
3. Range of Skills 3. Prepare for AI & RPA / SAM
Technology Vendor Management Partnership members identified a consistent set of issues and
challenges across organization, operation and process areas. This will enable targeted, focused
discussion and development of best practices.
