Social Media Management Software Selection Guide

Identify the best tools for your social media management needs.

Analyst Perspective

Connecting through social media is an essential way to understand and engage with your customers.

Social media management platforms (SMMP) allow businesses to engage with customers more efficiently. Ten years ago, Facebook and Twitter dominated the social media space, but many alternatives have emerged that attract a wide variety of audiences today. Every social media platform has a unique demographic; for instance, LinkedIn attracts an audience looking to develop their professional career, while Snapchat attracts those who want to share their everyday casual experience.

It is important for businesses and brands to engage with all kinds of audiences without alienating a certain group. Domino's, for example, can sell pizzas to business professionals and teenagers alike, so connecting with both customer segments via personalized and meaningful posts in their preferred platform is a great way to grow their business.

To successfully implement a social media management platform, organizations need to ensure they have their requirements and business needs shortlisted and choose vendors that ensure the best return on investment (ROI).

Sai Krishna Rajaramagopalan
Research Specialist, Customer Experience & Application Insights
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Social media has changed the way businesses interact with customers. It is essential to engage with your them regularly and in a timely manner.
• Businesses must stay on top of the latest news and update the public regarding any downtime or mishaps.
• Customers are present on multiple social media platforms, and businesses need to engage all audiences without neglecting or alienating any one group.

Common Obstacles

• There are many social media platforms, and any post, image, or other content must be uploaded on every platform with minimal delay.
• It is often difficult to manage audience interaction on all social media platforms in a timely manner.
• Measuring key performance metrics is crucial to obtaining the targeted ROI. Calculating ROI across multiple platforms with varying audiences is a challenge.

Info-Tech's Approach

• Social media presence is an extension of the organization, and the social media management strategy must align with organizational values.
• Understand your feature requirements and don't for bells and whistles. Vendors offer many features that are not helpful during 80% of day-to-day activities. Choose the SMMP that is right for your organization's needs.
• Ensure the SMMP has support and integrations for all the platforms that you require.

Info-Tech Insight

Choosing a good SMMP is only the first step. Having great social media managers who understand their audience is essential in maintaining a healthy relationship with your audience.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

The SMMP selection process should be broken into segments:

1. SMMP shortlisting with this buyer's guide
2. Structured approach to selection
3. Contract review

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

What exactly is an SMMP platform?

A social media management platform is a software solution that enables businesses and brands to manage multiple social media accounts. It facilitates making posts, monitoring metrics, and engaging with your audience.

An SMMP platform offers many key features, including but not limited to the following capabilities:

• Integrate with popular social media platforms
• Post images, text, videos on multiple platforms at once
• Schedule posts
• Track and monitor activity on social media accounts
• Send replies and view likes and comments across all accounts
• Reporting and analytics
• Send alerts and notifications regarding key events
• Multilingual support and translation

Info-Tech Insight

Social media management platforms have continuously expanded their features list. It is, however, essential not to get lost in endless features to remain competitive and ensure the best ROI.

Key trends – short-form videos drive the most engagement

Short-form videos

Short-form videos are defined as videos less than two minutes long. Shorter videos take substantially less time and effort to consume, making them very attractive for marketing brands to end users. According to a study conducted by Vidyard, more than 50% of viewers end up watching an entire video if it's less than one minute. Another study finds that over 93% of the surveyed brands sold their product or service to a customer through a social media video.

Popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube etc. have caught on to this trend and introduced short-form videos, more commonly called "shorts". It's also common for content creators and brands to cut and upload short clips from longer videos to drive more engagement with viewers.

Key Trends

Short-form videos have higher viewership and view time compared to long videos.

Key trends – influencer marketing

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is the collaboration of brands with online influencers and content creators across various social media platforms to market their products and services. Influencers are not necessarily celebrities; they can be any individual with a dedicated community. This makes influencers abundant. For instance, compare the number of popular football players with the number of YouTubers on the planet.

Unlike traditional marketing methods, influencer marketing is effective across different budget levels. This is because the engagement level of small influencers with 10,000 followers is higher than the engagement level of large influencers with millions of followers. If a brand is budget conscious, working with smaller influencers still gives a good ROI. For every dollar spent on influencer marketing, the average ROI is $5.78.

Key Trends

Executive Brief Case Study

INDUSTRY: Retail
SOURCE: "5 Influencer Marketing Case Studies," HubSpot

H&M

H&M was looking to build awareness and desirability around the brand to drive clothing sales during the holiday season. They decided to partner with influencers and align content with each celebrity's personality and lifestyle to create authentic content and messaging for H&M. H&M selected four lesser-known celebrities with highly engaged and devoted social media followings: Tyler Posey, Peyton List, Jana Kramer, and Hannah Simone.

They posted teaser clips across various platforms to create buzz about the campaign a couple of days before the full, one-minute videos were released. Presenting the content two different times enabled H&M to appeal to more viewers and increase the campaign's visibility. Two of the celebrities, List and Kramer, garnered more views and engagement on the short clip than the full video, highlighting that a great short clip can be more effective than long-form content.

Results

The campaign achieved 12 million views on YouTube, 1.3 million likes, 14,000 comments, and 19,000 shares. The average engagement with consumers across all four celebrities was 10%.

Tyler Posey's sponsored video achieved:

• 25% engagement rate on Instagram
• 14% engagement rate across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Key trends – social commerce is the future of e-commerce

Social commerce

Social commerce is the selling of goods and services through social media. This may involve standalone stores on social media platforms or promotions on these platforms which link to traditional e-commerce platforms.

Social media platforms contain more data about consumers than traditional platforms, which allows more accurate targeting of ads and promotions. Additionally, social commerce can place ads on popular influencer stories and posts, taking advantage of influencer marketing without directly involving the influencers.

Popular platforms have opened their own built-in stores. Facebook created Marketplace and Facebook Shops. TikTok soon followed with the TikTok Shopping suite. These stores allow platforms to lower third-party costs and have more control over which products are featured. This also creates a transactional call to action without leaving social media.

Key Trends

2020 saw a sizable increase in social commerce occurring on social media networks, with users making purchases directly from their social accounts.

Executive Brief Case Study

BestBuy

The Twitter Shop Module allows select brands to showcase products at the top of Twitter business profiles. Users can scroll through a carousel of products on a brand's profile and tap on individual products to read more and make purchases without leaving the platform.

While the results of Twitter's Shop Module experiment are still pending, brands aren't waiting around to sell on the platform. Best Buy and others continue to link to well-formatted product pages directly in their Tweets.

Clear, direct calls to action such as "Pick yours up today" encourage interested audiences to click through, learn more, and review options for purchase. In this social commerce example, Best Buy also makes optimal use of a Tweet's character limit. In just a few words, the brand offers significant savings for a high-quality product, then doubles down with a promotional trade-in offer. Strong imagery is the icing on the cake.

INDUSTRY: Retail
SOURCE: "5 genius social commerce examples," Sprout Social, 2021

Key trends – social media risk management is crucial

Crisis management

Crisis management is the necessary intervention from an organization when negative news spreads across social media platforms. With how interconnected people are due to social media, news can quickly spread across different platforms.

Organizations must be prepared for difficult situations such as negative feedback for a product or service, site outages, real-world catastrophes or disasters, and negative comments toward the social media handle. There are tools that organizations can use to receive real-time updates and be prepared for extreme situations.

While the causes are often beyond control, organizations can prepare by setting up a well-constructed crisis management strategy.

Key Trends

Executive Brief Case Study

INDUSTRY: Apparel
SOURCE: “Social Media Crisis Management 3 Examples Done Right,” Synthesio

Nike

On February 20, 2019, Zion Williamson, a star player from Duke University, suffered a knee injury when a malfunctioning Nike shoe fell apart. This accident happened less than a minute into a highly anticipated game against North Carolina. Media outlets and social media users quickly began talking. ESPN had broadcast the game nationally. On Twitter, former President Barack Obama, who was watching the game courtside, expressed his well-wishes to Williamson, as did NBA giants like LeBron James.

This accident was so high profile that Nike stock dropped 1.7% the following day. Nike soon released a statement expressing its concern and well-wishes for Williamson. The footwear megabrand reassured the world that its teams were "working to identify the issue." The following day, Nike sent a team to Durham, North Carolina, where the game took place. This team then visited Nike's manufacturing site in China and returned with numerous suggestions.

About a month later, Williamson returned to the court with custom shoes, which he told reporters were "incredible." He thanked Nike for creating them.

Get to know the key players in the SMMP landscape

These next slides provide a top-level overview of the popular players you will encounter in the SMMP shortlisting process.

Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

SoftwareReviews

	The data quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions. Vendors are ranked by their composite score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.
	The emotional footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions. Vendors are ranked by their customer experience (CX) score, which combines the overall emotional footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution.

Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

SoftwareReviews

Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.

Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization.

Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process.

User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor.

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Est. 2006 | MA, USA | NYSE: HUBS

bio

From attracting visitors to closing customers, HubSpot brings the entire marketing funnel together for less hassle, more control, and an inbound marketing strategy.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths:

• Extensive functionality
• Great for midmarket and large enterprises
• Offers free trial

Areas to improve:

• Comparatively expensive
• Steep price increase between various tiers of offering

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

HubSpot offers a robust social media management platform that enables organizations to run all social media campaigns from a central location. HubSpot is suitable for a range of midmarket and enterprise use cases. HubSpot offers a free base version of the platform that freelancers and start-ups can take advantage of. The free version can also be used to trial the product prior to deciding on purchase.

However, HubSpot is relatively expensive compared to its competitors. The free tools are not sustainable for growing businesses and some essential features are locked behind professional pricing. The price increase from one tier to another – specifically from starter to professional – is steep, which may discourage organizations looking for a "cheap and cheerful" product.

History

Starter Starts at $45 Per month Small businesses Professional Starts at $800 Per month Medium/large businesses Enterprise Starts at $3600 Per month Large enterprises

Est. 2010 | IL, USA | NASDAQ: SPT

bio

People increasingly turn to social media to engage with your business. Sprout Social provides powerful tools to personally connect with customers, solve issues, and create brand advocates.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths:

• Automated response feature
• Great price for base offering

Areas to improve:

• Advanced features are very expensive
• No free trial offered

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Sprout Social offers strong social feed management and social customer service capabilities. It also provides powerful analytical tools to monitor multiple social media accounts. The listening functionality helps discover trends and identify gaps and opportunities. It is also one of the very few platforms to provide automated responses to incoming communications, easing the process of managing large and popular brands.

Although the starting price of each tier is competitive, advanced analytics and listening come at a steep additional cost. Adding one additional user to the professional tier costs $299 which is a 75% increase in cost. Sprout Social does not offer a free tier for small businesses to trial.

History

Standard Starts at $249 Per month Small businesses Five social profiles Professional Starts at $399 Per month Medium/large businesses Advanced Starts at $499 Per month Medium/large businesses Enterprise Opaque pricing Request a quote Large enterprises

Est. 2008 | BC, CANADA |PRIVATE

bio

Manage social networks, schedule messages, engage your audiences, and measure ROI right from the dashboard.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths:

• Automatic scheduling functionality
• Competitor analysis
• 30-day free trial

Areas to improve:

• Advanced functionalities require additional purchase and are expensive

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Hootsuite is one of the largest players in the social media management space with over 18 million users. The solution has great functionality covering all the popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. One popular and well-received feature is the platform’s ability to schedule posts in bulk. Hootsuite also provides an automatic scheduling feature that uses algorithms to determine the optimal time to post to maximize viewership and engagement. Additionally, the platform can pull analytics for all competitors in the same marketspace as the user to compare performance.

Hootsuite offers buyers a 30-day free trial to familiarize with the platform and provides unlimited post scheduling across all their plans. Features like social listening, employee advocacy, and ROI reporting, however, are not included in these plans and require additional purchase.

History

Professional Starts at $49* Per month 1 user and 10 social accounts Team Starts at $249* Per month 3 users and 20 social accounts Business Starts at $739* Per month 5 users and 35 social accounts Enterprise Custom built and priced Starts at 5 users and 50 social accounts

Est. 2009 | NY, USA | NYSE: CXM

bio

With social engagement & sales, you can deliver a positive experience that's true to your brand - no matter where your customers are digitally - from a single, unified platform.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• Extensive social analytics functionality
• Advertising and sales capabilities

Areas to improve:

• Not suitable for small to medium businesses
• Opaque pricing

Sprinklr is a vendor focused on enterprise-grade capabilities that offers a comprehensive unified customer experience management (CXM) platform.

Their product portfolio offers an all-in-one solution set with an extensive list of features to accommodate all marketing and communication needs. Sprinklr comes integrated with products consisting of advertising, marketing, engagement, and sales capabilities. Some of the key functionality specific to social media includes sentiment analysis, social reporting, advanced data filtering, alerts and notifications, competitor analysis, post performance, and hashtag analysis.

History

Sprinklr – Opaque Pricing:
"Request a Demo"

Est. 1996 | TN, INDIA | PRIVATE

bio

Zoho Social is a complete social media management tool for growing businesses & agencies. It helps schedule posts, monitor mentions, create unlimited reports, and more. Zoho Social is from Zoho.com—a suite of 40+ products trusted by 30+ million users.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths:

• Provides integration capabilities with other Zoho products
• Competitive pricing

Areas to improve:

• Base functionality is limited
• The two starting tiers are limited to one user

*Pricing correct as of August 2021. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Zoho differentiates itself from competitors by highlighting integration with other products under the Zoho umbrella – their adjacent tool sets allow organizations to manage emails, projects, accounts, and webinars. Zoho also offers the choice of purchasing their social media management tool without any of the augmented CRM capabilities, which is priced quite competitively.

The social media management tools are offered in three plans. Each plan allows the ability to publish and schedule posts across nine platforms, access summary reports and analytics, and access a Bit.ly integration & URL shortener. The standard and professional plans are limited to one brand and one team member, with the option to add team members or social channels for an additional cost.

YouTube support is exclusive to the premium offering.

History

Standard Starts at $10* Per month, billed annually 9 channels and 1 team member Professional Starts at $30* Per month, billed annually Option to add team members for additional cost Premium Starts at $40* Per month, billed annually Starts at 10 channels and 3 team members

Est. 2012 | CA, USA | PRIVATE

bio

MavSocial is a multi-award-winning, fully integrated social media management & advertising solution for brands and agencies.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• Content management capabilities
• Offers millions of stock free images

Areas to improve:

• Limited market footprint compared to competitors
• Not ideal for large enterprises

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

In addition to social media management, MavSocial is also an excellent content management tool. A centralized platform is offered that can store many photos, videos, infographics, and more, which can be accessed anytime. The solution comes with millions of free stock images to use. MavSocial is a great hybrid social media and content management solution for small and mid-sized businesses and larger brands that have dedicated teams to manage their social media. MavSocial also offers campaign planning and management, scheduling, and social inbox functionality. The entry-level plan starts at $78 per month for three users and 30 profiles. The enterprise plan offers fully configurable and state-of-the-art social media management tools, including the ability to manage Facebook ads.

History

Pro Starts at $78* Per month Max. 3 users and 30 Profiles Business Starts at $249* Per month 5 users, 40 profiles Ability to expand users and profiles Enterprise Starts at $499* Per month Fully customized

Est. 2019 | TX, USA | PRIVATE

bio

Use the Khoros platform (formerly Spredfast + Lithium) to deliver an all-ways connected experience your customers deserve.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• Offers a dedicated social strategic service team
• Extensive functionality

Areas to improve:

• Opaque pricing
• Not suitable for small or medium businesses

Khoros is the result of the merger between two social marketing platforms - Spredfast and Lithium. The parent companies have over a decade of experience offering social management tools. Khoros is widely used among many large brands such as StarHub and Randstad. Khoros is another vendor that is primarily focused on large enterprises and does not offer plans for small/medium businesses. Khoros offers a broad range of functionality such as social media marketing, customer engagement, and brand protection with visibility and controls over social media presence. Khoros also offers a social strategic services team to manage content strategy, brand love, reporting, trend tracking, moderation, crisis and community management; this team can be full service or a special ops extension of your in-house crew.

History

Khoros – Opaque Pricing:
"Request a Demo"

Est. 2009 | UK | PRIVATE

bio

Sendible allows you to manage social networks, schedule messages, engage your audiences, and measure ROI right from one easy-to-use dashboard.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• Great integration capabilities
• Competitive pricing
• Scheduling functionality

Areas to improve:

• Limited footprint compared to competitors
• Better suited for agencies

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Sendible primarily markets itself to agencies rather than individual brands or businesses. Sendible's key value proposition is its integration capabilities. It can integrate with 17 different tools including Meta, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google My Business (GMB), YouTube, WordPress, Canva, Google Analytics, and Google Drive. In addition to normal reporting functionality, the Google Analytics integration allows customers to track clickthrough and user behavior for traffic coming from social media channels.

All plans include the functionality to schedule at least ten posts. Sendible offers excellent collaboration tools, allowing teams to work on assigned tasks and have content approved before they are scheduled to ensure quality control. Sendible offers four plans, with the option to save an additional 15% by signing up for annual payments.

History

Creator Starts at $29 Price per month For freelancers One brand Traction Starts at $89 Price per month Start-up agencies & brands. 4+ brands Scale Starts at $199 Price per month For growing agencies & brands Custom Opaque pricing Request a quote For large teams & agencies

Est. 2010 | FRANCE | PRIVATE

bio

Agorapulse is an affordable social media dashboard that helps businesses and agencies easily publish content and manage their most important conversations on their social networks.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• ROI calculation for Facebook
• Competitor analysis
• Social inbox functionality

Areas to improve:

• Targeted toward agencies
• Advanced features can't be purchased under lower tier plans

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Although Agorapulse offers the solution for both agencies and business, they primarily focus on agencies. In addition to the standard social media management functionality, Agorapulse also offers features such as competitor analysis and Facebook contest apps at an affordable price point. They also offer social inbox functionality, allowing the ability to manage the inbox and reply to any message or comment across all social profiles through a single platform.

The solution is offered in three plans. The pro plan allows ten social profiles and two users. Additional social profiles and users can only be purchased under the premium plan. All plans include ROI calculation for Facebook, but if you want this functionality for other platforms, that's exclusive to the enterprise plan.

History

Pro Starts at $79 Price per month 10 social profiles and 2 users Premium Starts at $199 Price per month 20 social profiles and 2 brands Enterprise Opaque pricing 40+ social profiles and 8+ users

Est. 2010 | CA, USA | PRIVATE

bio

A better way to manage social media for your business. Buffer makes it easy to manage your business' social media accounts. Schedule posts, analyze performance, and collaborate with your team — all in one place.

SoftwareReviews' SMMP Rankings

Strengths

• Competitive pricing
• Scheduling functionality
• Mobile app

Areas to improve:

• Not suited for medium to large enterprises
• Limited functionality

*Pricing correct as of November 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

Buffer is a social media platform targeted toward small businesses. It is a great cost-effective option for those who want to manage a few social media profiles, with a free plan that lets one user access three social channels. At $5 per month, it's a great entry point for smaller companies to invest in social media management tools, offering functionality like post scheduling and link shortening and optimization tools for hashtags, tags, and mentions across platforms. All plans provide a browser extension, access to a mobile app, two-factor authentication, social media and email support, and access to the Buffer community. Customers can also trial any of the plans for 14 days before purchasing.

history

Essentials Starts at $5 Per month per channel Basic functionality Team Starts at $10 Per month per channel Adds reporting capabilities Agency Starts at $100 Per month per channel

Leverage Info-Tech's research to plan and execute your SMMP implementation

Use Info-Tech Research Group's three-phase implementation process to guide your own planning.

• Assess
• Prepare
• Govern & Course Correct

Establish and execute an end-to-end, Agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application.

Visit this link

Ensure your implementation team has a high degree of trust and communication

If external partners are needed, dedicate an internal resource to managing vendor and partner relationships.

Communication

Teams must have a communication strategy. This can be broken into:

• Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
• Ceremonies: Introducing awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value can encourage relationship building and constructive motivation.
• Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing those concerns.

Proximity

Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:

• Location: Placing teams in proximity can close the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
• Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
• Communication tools: Having the right technology (e.g. video conference) can help bring teams closer together virtually.

Trust

Members should trust other members to contribute to the project and complete required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:

• Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
• Role clarity: Having a clear definition of everyone's role.

Summary of Accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

• What a social media management platform (SMMP) is
• The history of SMMP
• The future of SMMP
• Key trends in SMMP

Processes Optimized

• Requirements gathering
• Requests for proposal (RFPs) and contract reviews
• SMMP vendor selection
• SMMP implementation

SMMP Vendors Analyzed

• Sprout Social
• HubSpot
• Zoho Social
• Khoros
• Agorapulse
• Hootsuite
• Sprinklr
• MavSocial
• Sendible
• Buffer

Related Info-Tech Research

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

• SMMPs reduce complexity and increase the results of enterprise social media initiatives.

Social Media

• The Social Media workshop provides clear, measurable improvements to your social media strategy.

Improve Requirements Gathering

• An improvement in requirements analysis will strengthen the relationship between business and IT, as more and more applications satisfy stakeholder needs. More importantly, the applications delivered by IT will meet all the must-have and at least some of the nice-to-have requirements, allowing end users to successfully execute their day-to-day responsibilities.

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Design a VIP Experience for Your Service Desk

Keep the C-suite satisfied without sacrificing service to the rest of the organization.

Analyst Perspective

Stop being reactive to VIP demands and formalize their service offering.

Natalie Sansone, PHD

Research Director,
Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

In a perfect world, executives wouldn’t need any special treatment because the service desk could rapidly resolve every ticket, regardless of the submitter, keeping satisfaction levels high across the board.

But we know that’s not the case for most organizations. Executives and VIPs demand higher levels of service because the reality in most companies is that their time is worth more. And any IT leader who’s had a VIP complain about their service knows that their voice also carries more weight than that of a regular dissatisfied user.

That said, most service desks feel strapped for resources and don’t know how to improve service for VIPs without sacrificing service to the rest of the organization.

The key is to stop being reactive to VIP demands and formalize your VIP service procedures so that you can properly set expectations for the service, monitor and measure it, and continually evaluate it to make changes if necessary.

A VIP offering doesn’t have to mean a white glove concierge service, either – it could simply mean prioritizing VIP tickets differently. How do you decide which level of service to offer? Start by assessing your specific needs based on demand, gather requirements from relevant stakeholders, choose the right approach to fit your business needs and capabilities, clearly define and document all aspects of the service then communicate it so that everyone is on the same page as to what is in and out of scope, and continually monitor and evaluate the service to make changes and improvements as needed.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

The reality for most organizations is that VIPs need special treatment. But providing VIP service shouldn’t come at the expense of good service delivery for the rest of the organization. To be successful with your approach, formalize the VIP offering to bring consistency and clear expectations for both users and the IT staff delivering the service.

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

• A VIP calls because their personal printer isn’t working, but you also have a network issue affecting payroll being able to issue paychecks. The VIP wants their issue fixed immediately despite there being a workaround and a higher priority incident needing resources.
• The COO calls the CIO after hours about issues they’re having with their email. The CIO immediately deploys a field tech back to the office to help the COO. Once the tech arrives, the COO says the issue could have waited until the morning.
• The company president wants IT to spend a day at their house setting up their new personal laptop to be able to connect into the office before their vacation tomorrow. It would take away one FTE from an already understaffed service desk.
• The CEO brings their child’s new iPhone in and asks the service desk if they have time to set it up as a favor today. The service desk manager instructs the T2 apps specialist to drop his other tickets to work on this immediately.
• Two tickets come in at the same time – one is from an SVP who can’t log in to Teams and has an online meeting in half an hour, and the other is for a department of 10 who can’t access the network. The service desk doesn’t know who to help first.

Different organizations can take very different approaches to VIP requests

CASE STUDIES

A well-designed and communicated VIP support service can deliver many benefits

A successfully designed VIP service will lead to:

• Executives and VIPs can easily contact the service desk and receive exceptional support and customer service from a knowledgeable technician, increasing their trust in the service desk.
• All service desk tickets are prioritized appropriately and effectively in order to maximize overall ticket resolution and fulfillment times.
• All users have a clear understanding of how to get in touch with the service desk and expected SLAs for specific ticket types.
• Critical, business-impacting issues still receive priority service ahead of minor tickets submitted by a VIP.
• All service desk technicians are clear on processes and procedures for prioritizing and handling VIP tickets.
• Executives are satisfied with the service they receive and the value that IT provides
• Reduced VIP downtime, contributing to overall organization productivity and growth.

A poorly designed or reactive VIP service will lead to:

• VIPs expect immediate service for non-critical issues, including after-hours.
• VIPs circumvent the correct process and contact the CIO or service desk manager directly for all their issues.
• Service desk resources stretched thin, or poor allocation of resources leads to degraded service for the majority of users.
• More critical business issues are pushed back in order to fix non-critical executive issues.
• Service desk is not clear how to prioritize tickets and always addresses VIP tickets first regardless of priority.
• The service desk automatically acts on VIP tickets even when the VIP doesn’t require it or realize they’re getting a different level of service.
• Non-VIP users are aware of the different service levels and try to request the same priority for their tickets. Support costs are over budget.

Follow Info-Tech’s approach to design a successful VIP support model

1. Understand the support models available, from white glove service to the same service for everyone.
2. Gather business requirements from all relevant stakeholders.
3. Based on your business needs, choose the right approach.
4. Define and document all details of the VIP service offering.
5. Communicate and market the offering to VIPs so they’re aware of what’s in scope.
6. Monitor volume and track metrics to evaluate what’s working.
7. Continually improve or modify the service as needed over time.

Blueprint deliverables

Insight Summary

Key Insight

The reality for most organizations is that VIPs need special treatment. But providing VIP service shouldn’t be at the expense of good service delivery for the rest of the organization. To be successful with your approach, formalize the VIP offering to bring consistency and clear expectations for both users and the IT staff delivering the service.

Additional insights:

Step 1: Understand the different support models

Step overview:

• Understand the support models available, from white glove service to the same service for everyone

First, define what “VIP support” means in your organization

VIP support from the service desk usually refers to an elevated level of service (i.e. faster, after-hours, off-site, and/or with more experienced resources) that is provided to those at the executive level of the organization.

A VIP typically includes executives across the business (e.g. CIO, CEO, CxO, VPs) and sometimes the executive assistants who work directly with them. However, it can also include non-executive-level but critical business roles in some organizations.

The level of VIP service provided can differ from receiving prioritization in the queue to having a dedicated, full-time technician providing “white glove” service.

Info-Tech Insight

You don’t have to use the term “VIP”, as long as you clearly define the terms you are using. Some organizations use the term “VIR” to refer to very important roles rather than people, and some define “critical users” to reflect who should receive prioritized service, for example.

There are essentially two options for VIP support, but multiple determining factors

Option 1: Same service for everyone

What does it look like?

VIP tickets are prioritized in the same way as every other ticket – with an assessment by impact and urgency. This allows every ticket to be prioritized appropriately according to how big the impact of the issue is and how quickly it needs to be resolved – regardless of who the submitter is. This means that VIPs with very urgent issues will still receive immediate support, as would a non-VIP user with a critical issue.

Who is it best suited for?

• Small organizations and IT teams.
• Executives don’t want special treatment.
• Not enough service desk resources or budget to provide prioritized or dedicated VIP service.
• Service desk is already efficient and meeting SLAs for all requests and incidents.

Pros

• Highest level of consistency in service because the same process is followed for all user groups.
• Ensures that service doesn’t suffer for non-VIP users for teams with a limited number of service desk staff.
• No additional cost.
• Potential to argue for more resources if executive service expectations aren’t met.

Cons

• Does not work if executives expect or require elevated service regardless of issue type.
• Potential for increase in management escalations or complaints from dissatisfied executives. Some may end up jumping the queue as a result, which results in unstandardized VIP treatment only for some users.

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t design a VIP service solely out of fear that VIPs will be unhappy with the standard level of support the service desk provides. In some cases, it is better to focus your efforts on improving your standard support for everyone rather than only for a small percentage of users, especially if providing that elevated VIP support would further deteriorate service levels for the rest of the organization.

Option 2: Prioritized service for VIPs

What does it look like?

• VIPs still go through the service desk but receive higher priority than non-VIP tickets.
• Requests from VIP submitters are still evaluated using the standard prioritization matrix but are bumped up in urgency or priority. More critical issues can still take precedence.
• Existing service desk resources are still used to resolve the request, but requests are just placed closer to the “front of the line.”
• VIP users are identified in the ticketing system and may have a separate number to call or are routed differently/skip the queue within the ACD/IVR.

Who is it best suited for?

• Organizations that want or need to give VIPs expedited or enhanced service, but that don’t have the resources to dedicate to a completely separate VIP service desk team.

Pros

• Meets the need of executives for faster service.
• Balances the need for prioritized service to VIPs while not sacrificing resources to handle most user requests.
• All tickets still go through a single point of contact to be triaged and monitored by the service desk.
• Easy to measure and compare performance of VIP service vs. standard service because processes are the same.

Cons

• Slight cost associated with implementing changes to phone system if necessary.
• Makes other users aware that VIPs receive “special treatment” – some may try to jump the queue themselves.
• May not meet the expectations of some executives who prefer dedicated, face-to-face resources to resolve their issues.

Info-Tech Insight

If you’re already informally bumping VIP tickets up the queue, this may be the most appropriate model for you. Bring formalization to your process by clearly defining exactly where VIP tickets fit in your prioritization matrix to ensure they are handled consistently and that VIPs are aware of the process.

Option 3: Dedicated VIP service

What does it look like?

• VIPs contact a dedicated service desk and receive immediate/expedited support, often face to face.
• Often a separate phone number or point of contact.
• Similar to concierge service or “white glove” service models.
• At least one dedicated FTE with good customer service skills and technical knowledge who builds trust with executives.

Who is it best suited for?

• Larger enterprises with many VIP users to support, but where VIPs are geographically clustered (as geography sprawls, the cost of the service will spiral).
• IT organizations with enough resources on the service desk to support a dedicated VIP function.
• Organizations where executives require immediate, in-person support.

Pros

• Most of the time, this model results in the fastest service delivery to executives.
• Most personal method of delivering support with help often provided in person and from familiar, trusted technicians.
• Usually leads to the highest level of satisfaction with the service desk from executives.

Cons

• Most expensive model; usually requires at least one dedicated, experienced FTE to support and sometimes after-hours support.
• Essentially two separate service desks; can result in a disconnect between staff.
• Career path and cross-training opportunities for the dedicated staff may be limited; role can be exhausting.
• Reporting on the service can be more complicated and tickets are often logged after the fact.
• If not done well, quality of service can suffer for the rest of the organization.

Info-Tech Insight

This type of model is essential in many large enterprises where the success of the company can depend on VIPs having access to dedicated support to minimize downtime as much as possible. However, it also requires the highest level of planning and dedication to get right. Without carefully documented processes and procedures and highly trained staff to support the model, it will fail to deliver the expected benefits.

Step 2: Capture business needs

Step overview:

• Analyze your data and gather requirements to determine whether there is a need for a VIP service.

Assess current state and metrics

Analyze ticket data

• What volume of tickets are you supporting? How many of those tickets come from VIP users?
• What is your current resolution time for incidents and requests? How well are you currently meeting SLAs?
• How quickly are executive/VIP tickets being resolved? How long do they have to wait for a response?
• How many after-hours requests do you receive?

Assess resourcing

• How many users do you support; what percentage of them would be identified as VIP users?
• How many service desk technicians do you have at each tier?
• How well are you currently meeting demand? Would you be able to meet demand if you dedicated one or more Tier 2 technicians to VIP support?
• If you would need to hire additional resources, is there budget to do so?

Use the data to inform your assessment

• Do you have a current problem with service delivery to VIPs and/or all users that needs to be addressed by changing the VIP support model?
• Do you have the demand to support the need for a VIP service?
• Do you have the resources to support providing VIP service?

Leverage Info-Tech’s tools to inform your assessment

Analyze your ticket data and reports to understand how well you’re currently meeting SLAs, your average response and resolution times, and the volume and type of requests you get from VIPs in order to understand the need for changing your current model. If you don’t have the ticket data to inform your assessment, leverage Info-Tech’s Service Desk Ticket Analysis Tool.

Service Desk Ticket Analysis Tool

Use this tool to identify trends and patterns in your ticket data. The ticket summary dashboard contains multiple reports analyzing how tickets come in, who requests them, who resolves them, and how long it takes to resolve them.

If you need help understanding how well your current staff is able to handle your current ticket volume, leverage Info-Tech’s Service Desk Staffing Calculator to analyze demand and ticket volume trends. While not specifically designed to analyze VIP tickets, you could run the assessment separately for VIP volume if you have that data available.

Service Desk Staffing Calculator

Use this tool to help you estimate the optimal resource allocation to support your demand over time.

Engage stakeholders to understand their requirements

Follow your organization’s requirements gathering process to identify and prioritize stakeholders, conduct stakeholder interviews, and identify, track, and prioritize their requirements and expectations for service delivery.

Gather requirements from VIP stakeholders

1. Identify which stakeholders need to be consulted.
2. Prioritize stakeholders in terms of influence and interest in order to identify who to engage in the requirements gathering process.
3. Build a plan for gathering the requirements of key stakeholders in terms of VIP service delivery.
4. Conduct requirements gathering and record the results of each stakeholder interaction.
5. Analyze and summarize the results to determine the top expectations and requirements for VIP service desk support.

If your organization does not have a defined requirements gathering process or template, leverage Info-Tech tools and templates:

The Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint can be adapted from software requirements gathering to service desk.

The PMO Requirements Gathering Tool can be adapted from interviewing stakeholders on their PMO requirements to service desk requirements.

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t guess at what your VIPs need or want – ask them and involve them in the service design. Many IT leaders sacrifice overall service quality to prioritize VIPs, thinking they expect immediate service. However, they later find out that the VIPs just assumed the service they were receiving was the standard service and many of their issues can wait.

Identify additional challenges and opportunities by collecting perceptions of business users and stakeholders

CIO Business Vision

Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision program is a low-effort, high-impact program that will give you detailed report cards on the organization’s satisfaction with IT’s core services. Use these insights to understand your key business stakeholders, find out what is important to them, and improve your interactions.

End User Satisfaction

Info-Tech’s End User Satisfaction Program helps you measure end-user satisfaction and importance ratings of core IT services, IT communications, and business enablement to help you decide which IT service capabilities need to be addressed to meet the demands of the business.

Learn more about Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision or End User Satisfaction Program .

Step 3: Choose the right approach

Step overview:

• Based on your assessment from Step 2, decide on the best way to move forward with your VIP service model.

Use your assessment results to choose the most appropriate support model

The table below is a rough guide for how the results of your assessments may line up to the most appropriate model for your organization:

Info-Tech Insight

If you’re in the position of deciding how to improve service to VIPs, it’s unlikely that you will end up choosing the “same service” model. If your data analysis tells you that you are currently meeting every metric target for all users, this may actually indicate that you’re overstaffed at the service desk.

If you choose a specialized VIP support model, ensure there is a strong, defined need before moving forward

Do not proceed if:

• Your decision is purely reactive in response to a perceived need or challenges you’re currently experiencing
• The demand is coming from a single dissatisfied executive without requirements from other VIPs being collected.
• Your assessment data does not support the demand for a dedicated VIP function.
• You don’t have the resources or support required to be successful in the approach.

Proceed with a VIP model if:

• You’re prepared to scale and support the model over the long term.
• Business stakeholders have clearly expressed a need for improved VIP service.
• Data shows that there is a high volume of urgent requests from VIPs.
• You have the budget and resources required to support an enhanced VIP service delivery model.

Step 4: Design the service offering

Step overview:

• Define and document all processes, procedures, and responsibilities relevant to the VIP support offering.

Clearly define the service and eligible users

1. Define exactly what the service is before going into the procedural details. High-level examples to start from are provided below:

Prioritized Service Model

When a designated VIP user contacts the service desk with a question, incident, or service request, their ticket will be prioritized over non-VIP tickets following the prioritization matrix. This process has been designed in accordance with business needs and requirements, as defined VIP users have more urgent demands on their time and the impact of downtime is greater as it has the potential to impact the business. However, all tickets, VIP tickets included, must still be prioritized by impact and urgency. Incidents that are more critical will still be resolved before VIP tickets in accordance with the prioritization process.

Dedicated Service Model

VIP support is a team of dedicated field technicians available to provide an elevated level of service including deskside support for executives and designated VIP users. VIP users have the ability to contact the VIP support service through a dedicated phone number and will receive expedited ticket handling and resolution by dedicated Tier 2 specialists with experience dealing with executives and their unique needs and requirements. This process has been designed in accordance with business needs and requirements.

2 Identify VIP-eligible users

• Define who qualifies as a VIP to receive VIP support or be eligible to contact the dedicated VIP service desk/concierge desk.
• If other users or EAs can submit tickets on behalf of VIPs, identify those individuals as well.
• Review the list and cut back if necessary. Less is usually more here, especially when starting out. If everyone is a VIP, then no one is truly a VIP.
• Identify who maintains ownership over the list of eligible VIP users and how any changes to the list or requests for changes will be handled.
• Ensure that all VIP-eligible users are clearly identified in the ITSM system.

Map out the VIP process in a workflow

Use a visual workflow to document the process for resolving or fulfilling VIP tickets, from when the ticket is submitted to when it gets closed.

Your workflow should address the following:

• How should the ticket be prioritized?
• When are escalations necessary?
• What happens if a user requests VIP service but is not defined as eligible?
• Should the user verify that the issue is resolved before the ticket is closed?
• What automatic notifications or communications need to go out and when?
• What manual communications or notifications need to be sent out (e.g. when a ticket is escalated or reassigned)?

Use the VIP Support Process Workflow Example as a template to map out your own process.

Define and document all VIP processes and procedures

Define all aspects of the service so that every VIP request will follow the same standardized process and VIPs will have clear expectations for the service they receive. This may include:

• How VIPs should contact the service desk
• How VIP tickets will be prioritized
• SLAs and service expectations for VIP tickets
• Ticket resolution or fulfillment steps and process
• Escalation points and contacts
• After-hours requests process

If VIP user requests receive enhanced priority, for example, define exactly how those requests should be prioritized using your prioritization matrix. An example is found below and in the Service Desk VIP Procedures Template.

Use Info-Tech’s Service Desk VIP Procedures Template as a guide

This template is designed to assist with documenting your service desk procedures for handling VIP or executive tickets. The template is not meant to cover all possible VIP support models but is an example of one support model only. It should be adapted and customized to reflect your specific support model and procedures.

It includes the following sections:

1. VIP support description/overview
2. VIP support entitlement (who is eligible)
3. Procedures
   • Ticket submission and triage
   • Ticket prioritization
   • SLAs and escalation
   • VIP ticket resolution process
   • After-hours requests
4. Monitoring and reporting

Download the Service Desk VIP Procedures Template

Allocate resources or assign responsibilities specific to VIP support

• Clarify the expectations of any service desk agent who will be handling VIP tickets; they should demonstrate excellent customer service skills and expertise, respect for the VIP and the sensitivity of their data, and prompt service.
• Use a RACI chart to clarify responsibility and accountability for VIP-specific support tasks.
• If you will be moving to a dedicated VIP support team, clearly define the responsibilities of any new roles or tasks. Sample responsibilities can be found on the right.
• If you will be changing the role of an existing service desk agent to become focused solely on providing VIP support, clarify how the responsibilities of other service desk agents may change too, if at all.
• Be clear on expectations of agents for after-hours support, especially if there will be a change to the current service provision.

Sample responsibilities for a dedicated VIP support technician/specialist may include:

• Resolve support tickets for all eligible VIP users following established processes and procedures.
• Provide both onsite and remote support to executives.
• Quickly and effectively diagnose and resolve technical issues with minimal disruption to the executive team.
• Establish trust with executives/VIPs by maintaining confidentiality and privacy while providing technical support.
• Set up, monitor, and support high-priority meetings, conferences, and events.
• Demonstrate excellent communication and customer service skills when providing support to executives.
• Coordinate more complex support issues with higher level support staff and track tickets through to resolution when needed.
• Learn new technology and software ahead of implementation to train and support executive teams for use.
• Conduct individual or group training as needed to educate on applications or how to best use technology to enhance productivity.
• Proactively manage, maintain, update, and upgrade end-user devices as needed.

Configure your ITSM tool to support your processes

• Identify and configure VIP users in the system to ensure that they are easily identifiable in the system (e.g. there may be a symbol beside their name).
• Configure automations or build ticket templates that would automatically set the urgency or priority of VIP tickets.
• Configure any business rules or workflows that apply to the VIP support process.
• Define any automated notifications that need to be sent when a VIP ticket is submitted, assigned, escalated, or resolved (e.g. notify service desk manager or a specific DL).
• Define metrics and customize dashboards and reports to monitor VIP tickets and measure the success of the VIP service.
• Configure any SLAs that apply only to VIPs to ensure displayed SLAs are accurate.

Step 5: Launch the service

Step overview:

• Communicate and market the service to all relevant stakeholders so everyone is on the same page as to how it works and what’s in scope.

Communicate the new or revised service to relevant stakeholders ahead of the launch

If you did your due diligence, the VIP service launch won’t be a surprise to executives. However, it’s critical to

continue the engagement and communicate the details of the service well to ensure there are no misperceptions about the

service when it launches.

Goals of communicating and marketing the service:

1. Create awareness and understanding of the purpose of the VIP service and what it means for eligible users.
2. Solidify commitment and buy-in for the service from all stakeholders.
3. Ensure that all users know how to access the service and any changes to the way they should interact with the service desk.
4. Set expectations for new/revised service levels.
5. Reduce and address any concerns about the change in process.

Info-Tech Insight

This step isn’t only for the launch of new services. Even if you’re enhancing or right-sizing an existing VIP service, take the opportunity to market the improvements, remind users of the correct processes, and collect feedback.

Leverage Info-Tech’s communication template to structure your presentation

This template can be customized to use as an executive presentation to communicate and market the service to VIP users. It includes:

• Key takeaways
• Current-state assessment
• Requirements gathering and feedback results
• Objectives for the service
• Anticipated benefits
• Service entitlement
• How the service works
• Escalations and feedback contacts
• Timeline of next steps

Info-Tech Insight

If you’re launching a dedicated concierge service for VIPs, highlight the exclusivity of the service in your marketing to draw users in. For example, if eligible VIPs get a separate number to call, expedited SLAs, or access to more tenured service desk experts, promote this added value of the service.

Download the VIP Support Service Communication Template

Step 6: Monitor and measure

Step overview:

• Measure and monitor the success of the program by tracking and reporting on targeted metrics.

Evaluate and demonstrate the success of the program with key metrics

Targeted metrics to evaluate the success of the VIP program will be critical to understanding and demonstrating whether the service is delivering the intended value. Track key metrics to:

• Track if and how well you’re meeting your defined SLAs for VIP support.
• Measure demand for VIP support (i.e. ticket volume and types of tickets) and evaluate against resource supply to determine whether a staffing adjustment is needed to meet demand.
• Measure the cost of providing the VIP service in order to report back to executives.
• Leverage real data to quantitatively demonstrate that you’re providing enhanced service to VIPs if there is an escalation or negative feedback from one individual.
• Monitor service delivery to non-VIP users to ensure that service to the rest of the organization isn’t impacted by the VIP service
• Evaluate the types of ticket that are submitted to the VIP service to inform training plans, self-service options, device upgrades, or alternatives to reduce future volume.

Info-Tech Insight

If your data definitively shows the VIP offering delivers enhanced service levels, publish these results to business leadership. A successful VIP service is a great accomplishment to market and build credibility for the service desk.

Tie metrics to critical success factors

Sample Critical Success Factors

• Increased executive satisfaction with the service desk
• Improved response and resolution times to VIP tickets
• Demand for the service is matched by supply

Sample Metrics

• End-user satisfaction scores on VIP tickets
• Executive satisfaction with the service desk as measured on a broader annual survey
• Response and resolution times for VIP tickets
• Percentage of SLAs met for VIP tickets
• VIP ticket volume
• Average speed of answer for VIP calls

Download Define Service Desk Metrics that Matter and the Service Desk Metrics Workbook for help defining CSFs, KPIs, and key metrics

Step 7: Continually improve

Step overview:

• Continually evaluate the program to identify opportunities for improvement or modifications to the service support model.

Continually evaluate the service to identify improvements

Executives are happy, resolution times are on target – now what? Even if everything seems to be working well, never stop monitoring, measuring, and evaluating the service. Not only can metrics change, but there can also always be ways to improve service.

• Continual improvement should be a mindset – there are always opportunities for improvement, and someone should be responsible for identifying and tracking these opportunities so that they actually get done.
• Just as you asked for feedback and involvement from VIPs (and their assistants who may submit tickets on their behalf) in designing the service, you should continually collect that feedback and use it to inform improvements to the service.
• End-user satisfaction surveys, especially broader, more targeted surveys, are also a great source of improvement ideas.
• Even if end users don’t perceive any need for improvement, IT should still assess how they can make their own processes more efficient or offer alternatives to make delivery easier.

Download Info-Tech’s Build a Continual Improvement Program blueprint to help you build a process around continual improvement, and use the Continual Improvement Register tool to help you identify and prioritize improvement initiatives.

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t limit your continual improvement efforts to the VIP service. Once you’ve successfully elevated the VIP service, look to how you can apply elements of that service to elevate support to the rest of the organization. For example, through providing a roaming service desk, a concierge desk, a Genius-Bar-style walk-in service, etc.

Expand, reduce, or modify as needed

Expand

• If the service offering has been successful and/or your data shows underuse of VIP-dedicated resources, you may be able to expand the offering to identify additional roles as VIP-eligible.
• Be cautious not to expand the service too widely; not only should it feel exclusive to VIPs, but you need to be able to support it.
• Also consider whether elements that have been successful in the VIP program (e.g. a concierge desk, after-hours support) should be expanded to be offered to non-VIPs.

Reduce

• If VIPs are not using the service as much as anticipated or data shows supply outweighs demand, you may consider scaling back the service to save costs and resources.
• However, be careful in how you approach this – it shouldn’t negatively impact service to existing users.
• Rather, evaluate costly services like after-hours support and whether it’s necessary based on demand, adjust SLAs if needed, or reallocate service desk resources or responsibilities. For example, if demand doesn’t justify a dedicated service desk technician, either add non-VIP tasks to their responsibilities or consider moving to a prioritized model.

Modify

• The support model doesn’t need to be set in stone. If elements aren’t working, change them! If the entire support model isn’t working, reevaluate if it’s the best model for your organization.
• Don’t make decisions in a vacuum, though. Just as executives were involved in decision-making at the outset, continually gather their feedback and use it to inform the service design.

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Works Cited

Munger, Nate. “Why You Should Provide VIP Customer Support.” Intercom, 13 Jan. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2023.

Ogilvie, Ryan. “We Did Away With VIP Support and Got More Efficient.” HDI, 17 Sep. 2020. Accessed Jan. 2023.

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Understand what Active Directory is and why Azure Active Directory does not replace it.

It’s about Kerberos and New Technology LAN Manager (NTLM).

Many organizations that want to innovate and migrate from on-premises applications to software as a service (SaaS) and cloud services are held hostage by their legacy Active Directory (AD). Microsoft did a good job taking over from Novell back in the late 90s, but its hooks into businesses are so deep that many have become dependent on AD services to manage devices and users, when in fact AD falls far short of needed capabilities, restricting innovation and progress. Despite Microsoft’s Azure becoming prominent in the world of cloud services, Azure AD is not a replacement for on-premises AD. While Azure AD is a secure authentication store that can contain users and groups, that is where the similarities end. In fact, Microsoft itself has an architecture to mitigate the shortcomings of Azure AD by recommending organizations migrate to a hybrid model, especially for businesses that have an in-house footprint of servers and applications. If you are a greenfield business and intend to take advantage of software, infrastructure, and platform as a service (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS), as well as Microsoft 365 in Azure, then Azure AD is for you and you don’t have to worry about the need for AD. John Donovan Principal Director, I&O Practice Info-Tech Research Group

Insight Summary

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t allow Active Directory services to dictate your enterprise innovation and modernization strategies. Determine if you can safely remove objects and move them to a cloud service where your Azure AD Domain Services can handle your authentication and manage users and groups.

The history of Active Directory

The evolution of your infrastructure environment

From NT to the cloud

Organizations depend on AD

AD is the backbone of many organizations’ IT infrastructure

73% of organizations say their infrastructure is built on AD.

82% say their applications depend on AD data.

89% say AD enables authenticated access to file servers.

90% say AD is the main source for authentication.

Source: Dimensions research: Active Directory Modernization :

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations fail to move away from AD for many reasons, including:

• Lack of time, resources, budget, and tools.
• Difficulty understanding what has changed.
• Migrating from AD being a low priority.

Active Directory components

Physical and logical structure

Authentication, authorization, and auditing

Active Directory has its hooks in!

AD creates infrastructure technical debt and is difficult to migrate away from.

Info-Tech Insight

Due to the pervasive nature of Active Directory in the IT ecosystem, IT organizations are reluctant to migrate away from AD to modernize and innovate.

Migration to Microsoft 365 in Azure has forced IT departments’ hand, and now that they have dipped their toe in the proverbial cloud “lake,” they see a way out of the mounting technical debt.

AD security

Security is the biggest concern with Active Directory.

Neglecting Active Directory security

98% of data breaches came from external sources.

Source: Verizon, Data Breach Report 2022

85% of data breach took weeks or even longer to discover.

Source: Verizon Data Breach Report, 2012

The biggest challenge for recovery after an Active Directory security breach is identifying the source of the breach, determining the extent of the breach, and creating a safe and secure environment.

Info-Tech Insight

Neglecting legacy Active Directory security will lead to cyberattacks. Malicious users can steal credentials and hijack data or corrupt your systems.

What are the security risks to legacy AD architecture?

• It's been 22 years since AD was released by Microsoft, and it has been a foundational technology for most businesses over the years. However, while there have been many innovations over those two decades, like Amazon, Facebook, iPhones, Androids, and more, Active Directory has remained mostly unchanged. There hasn’t been a security update since 2016.
• This lack of security innovation has led to several cyberattacks over the years, causing businesses to bolt on additional security measures and added complexity. AD is not going away any time soon, but the security dilemma can be addressed with added security features.

AD event logs

84% of organizations that had a breach had evidence of that breach in their event logs.

Source: Verizon Data Breach Report, 2012

What is the business risk

How does AD impact innovation in your business?

It’s widely estimated that Active Directory remains at the backbone of 90% of Global Fortune 1000 companies’ business infrastructure (Lepide, 2021), and with that comes risk. The risks include:

• Constraints of AD and growth of your digital footprint
• Difficulty integrating modern technologies
• Difficulty maintaining consistent security policies
• Inflexible central domains preventing innovation and modernization
• Inability to move to a self-service password portal
• Vulnerability to being hacked
• BYOD not being AD friendly

AD is dependent on Windows Server

1. Even though AD is compliant with LDAP, software vendors often choose optional features of LDAP that are not supported by AD. It is possible to implement Kerberos in a Unix system and establish trust with AD, but this is a difficult process and mistakes are frequent.
2. Restricting your software selection to Windows-based systems reduces innovation and may hamper your ability to purchase best-in-class applications.

Azure AD is not a replacement for AD

AD was designed for an on-premises enterprise

• Despite Microsoft’s Azure becoming prominent in the world of cloud services, Azure AD is not a replacement for on-premises AD.
• In fact, Microsoft itself has an architecture to mitigate the shortcomings of Azure AD by recommending organizations migrate to a hybrid model, especially those businesses that have an in-house footprint of servers and applications.
• If you are a greenfield business and intend to take advantage of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, as well as Microsoft 365 in Azure, then Azure AD is for you and you don’t have to worry about the need for AD.

"Azure Active Directory is not designed to be the cloud version of Active Directory. It is not a domain controller or a directory in the cloud that will provide the exact same capabilities with AD. It actually provides many more capabilities in a different way.

That’s why there is no actual ‘migration’ path from Active Directory to Azure Active Directory. You can synchronize your on-premises directories (Active Directory or other) to Azure Active Directory but not migrate your computer accounts, group policies, OU etc."

– Gregory Hall,
Brand Representative for Microsoft
(Source: Spiceworks)

The hybrid model for AD and Azure AD

How the model works

Note: AD Federated Services (ADFS) is not a replacement for AD. It’s a bolt-on that requires maintenance, support, and it is not a liberating service.

Many companies are:

• Moving to SaaS solutions for customer relationship management, HR, collaboration, voice communication, file storage, and more.
• Managing non-Windows devices.
• Moving to a hybrid model of work.
• Enabling BYOD.

Given these trends, Active Directory is becoming obsolete in terms of identity management and permissions.

The difference between AD Domain Services and Azure AD DS

One of the core principles of Azure AD is that the user is the security boundary, not the network.

Kerberos is the default authentication and authorization protocol for AD. Kerberos is involved in nearly everything from the time you log on to accessing Sysvol, which is used to deliver policy and logon scripts to domain members from the Domain Controller.

Info-Tech Insight

If you are struggling to get away from AD, Kerberos and NTML are to blame. Working around them is difficult. Azure AD uses SAML2.0 OpenID Connect and OAuth2.0.

Source: “Compare self-managed Active Directory Domain Services...” Azure documentation, 2022

Impact of work-from-anywhere

How AD poses issues that impact the user experience

IT organizations are under pressure to enable work-from-home/work-from-anywhere.

• IT teams regard legacy infrastructure, namely Active Directory, as inadequate to securely manage remote workloads.
• While organizations previously used VPNs to access resources through Active Directory, they now have complex webs of applications that do not reside on premises, such as AWS, G-Suite, and SaaS customer relationship management and HR management systems, among others. These resources live outside the Windows ecosystem, complicating user provisioning, management, and security.
• The work environment has changed since the start of COVID-19, with businesses scrambling to enable work-from-home. This had a huge impact on on-premises identity management tools such as AD, exposing their limitations and challenges. IT admins are all too aware that AD does not meet the needs of work-from-home.
• As more IT organizations move infrastructure to the cloud, they have the opportunity to move their directory services to the cloud as well.
  • JumpCloud, OneLogin, Okta, Azure AD, G2, and others can be a solution for this new way of working and free up administrators from the overloaded AD environment.
  • Identity and access management (IAM) can be moved to the cloud where the modern infrastructure lives.
  • Alternatives for printers using AD include Google Cloud Print, PrinterOn, and PrinterLogic.

How AD can impact your migration to Microsoft 365

The beginning of your hybrid environment

• Businesses that have a large on-premises footprint have very few choices for setting up a hybrid environment that includes their on-premises AD and Azure AD synchronization.
• Microsoft 365 uses Azure AD in the background to manage identities.
• Azure AD Connect will need to be installed, along with IdFix to identify errors such as duplicates and formatting problems in your AD.
• Password hash should be implemented to synchronize passwords from on-premises AD so users can sign in to Azure without the need for additional single sign-on infrastructure.
• Azure AD Connect synchronizes accounts every 30 minutes and passwords within two minutes.

Alternatives to AD

When considering retiring Active Directory from your environment, look at alternatives that can assist with those legacy application servers, handle Kerberos and NTML, and support LDAP.

• JumpCloud: Cloud-based directory services. JumpCloud provides LDAP-as-a-Service and RADIUS-as-a-Service. It authenticates, authorizes, and manages employees, their devices, and IT applications. However, domain name changes are not supported.
• Apache Directory Studio Pro: Written in Java, it supports LDAP v3–certified directory services. It is certified by Eclipse-based database utilities. It also supports Kerberos, which is critical for legacy Microsoft AD apps authentication.
• Univention Corporate Server (UCS): Open-source Linux-based solution that has a friendly user interface and gets continuous security and feature updates. It supports Kerberos V5 and LDAP, works with AD, and is easy to sync. It also supports DNS server, DHCP, multifactor authentication and single sign-on, and APIs and REST APIs. However, it has a limited English knowledgebase as it is a German tool.

What to look for

If you are embedded in Windows systems but looking for an alternative to AD, you need a similar solution but one that is capable of working in the cloud and on premises.

Aside from protocols and supporting utilities, also consider additional features that can help you retire your Active Directory while maintaining highly secure access control and a strong security posture.

These are just a few examples of the many alternatives available.

Market drivers to modernize your infrastructure

The business is now driving your Active Directory migration

What IT must deal with in the modern world of work:

• Leaner footprint for evolving tech trends
• Disaster recovery readiness
• Dynamic compliance requirements
• Increased security needs
• The need to future-proof
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Security extending the network beyond Windows

Organizations are making decisions that impact Active Directory, from enabling work-from-anywhere to dealing with malicious threats such as ransomware. Mergers and acquisitions also bring complexity with multiple AD domains.
The business is putting pressure on IT to become creative with security strategies, alternative authentication and authorization, and migration to SaaS and cloud services.

Activity

Build a checklist to migrate off Active Directory.

Related Info-Tech Research

Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk

• Build and maintain your Active Directory with good data.
• Actively maintaining the Active Directory is a difficult task that only gets more difficult with issues like stale accounts and privilege creep.

SoftwareReviews: Microsoft Azure Active Directory

• The Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enterprise identity service provides SSO and multifactor authentication to help protect your users from 99.9% of cybersecurity attacks

Define Your Cloud Vision

• Don’t think about the cloud as an inevitable next step for all workloads. The cloud is merely another tool in the toolbox, ready to be used when appropriate and put away when it’s not needed. Cloud-first isn’t always the way to go.

Bibliography

“2012 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2012. Web.
“2022 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2012. Web.
“22 Best Alternatives to Microsoft Active Directory.” The Geek Page, 16 Feb 2022. Accessed 12 Sept. 2022.
Altieri, Matt. “Infrastructure Technical Debt.” Device 42, 20 May 2019. Accessed Sept 2022.
“Are You Ready to Make the Move from ADFS to Azure AD?’” Steeves and Associates, 29 April 2021. Accessed 28 Sept. 2022.
Blanton, Sean. “Can I Replace Active Directory with Azure AD? No, Here’s Why.” JumpCloud, 9 Mar 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
Chai, Wesley, and Alexander S. Gillis. “What is Active Directory and how does it work?” TechTarget, June 2021. Accessed 10 Sept. 2022.
Cogan, Sam. “Azure Active Directory is not Active Directory!” SamCogan.com, Oct 2020. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Compare Active Directory to Azure Active Directory.” Azure documentation, Microsoft Learn, 18 Aug. 2022. Accessed 12 Sept. 2022.
"Compare self-managed Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory, and managed Azure Active Directory Domain Services." Azure documentation, Microsoft Learn, 23 Aug. 2022. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Dimensional Research, Active Directory Modernization: A Survey of IT Professionals.” Quest, 2017. Accessed Sept 2022.
Grillenmeier, Guido. “Now’s the Time to Rethink Active Directory Security.“ Semperis, 4 Aug 2021. Accessed Oct. 2013.
“How does your Active Directory align to today’s business?” Quest Software, 2017, accessed Sept 2022
Lewis, Jack “On-Premises Active Directory: Can I remove it and go full cloud?” Softcat, Dec.2020. Accessed 15 Sept 2022.
Loshin, Peter. “What is Kerberos?” TechTarget, Sept 2021. Accessed Sept 2022.
Mann, Terry. “Why Cybersecurity Must Include Active Directory.” Lepide, 20 Sept. 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
Roberts, Travis. “Azure AD without on-prem Windows Active Directory?” 4sysops, 25 Oct. 2021. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“Understanding Active Directory® & its architecture.” ActiveReach, Jan 2022. Accessed Sept. 2022.
“What is Active Directory Migration?” Quest Software Inc, 2022. Accessed Sept 2022.

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

What is vendor management?

When you read the phrase “vendor management,” what comes to mind? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Take your time … I’ll wait.

Unfortunately, those words conjure up a lot of different meanings, and much of that depends on whom you ask. Those who work in the vendor management field will provide a variety of answers. To complicate matters, those who are vendor management “outsiders” will have a totally different view of what vendor management is. Why is this important? Because we need a common definition to communicate more effectively, even if the definition is broad.

Let’s start creating a working definition that is not circular. Vendor management is not simply managing vendors. That expression basically reorders the words and does nothing to advance our cause; it only adds to the existing confusion surrounding the concept.

Vendor management is best thought of as a spectrum or continuum with many points rather than a specific discipline like accounting or finance. There are many functions and activities that fall under the umbrella term of vendor management: some of them will be part of your vendor management initiative (VMI), some will not, and some will exist in your organization but be outside the VMI. This is the unique part of vendor management – the part that makes it fun, but also the part that leads to the confusion. For example, accounts payable sits within the accounting department almost exclusively, but contract management can sit within or outside the VMI. The beauty of vendor management is its flexibility; your VMI can be created to meet your specific needs and goals while leveraging common vendor management principles.

Every conversation around vendor management needs to begin with “What do you mean by that?” Only then can we home in on the scope and nature of what people are discussing. “Managing vendors” is too narrow because it often ignores many of the reasons organizations create VMIs in the first place: to reduce costs, to improve performance, to improve processes, to improve relationships, to improve communication, and to manage risk better.

Vendor management is a strategic initiative that takes the big picture into account … navigating the cradle to grave lifecycle to get the most out of your interactions and relationships with your vendors. It is flexible and customizable; it is not plug and play or overly prescriptive. Tools, principles, templates, and concepts are adapted rather than adopted as is. Ultimately, you define what vendor management is for your organization.

We look forward to helping you on your vendor management journey no matter what it looks like. But first, let’s have a conversation about how you want to define vendor management in your environment.

Phil Bode
Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Each year, IT organizations “outsource” tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

• Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
• Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
• IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

*Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

Common Obstacles

As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don’t have a VMI to help:

• Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
• Improve on the expected value through performance management.
• Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

Info-Tech’s Approach

Vendor management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

• Plan
• Build
• Run
• Review

The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and set a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

Info-Tech Insight

Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

• For your environment, culture, and goals.
• To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
• To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape. In 2021, there was increases of:

38%

Spend on As-a-Service Providers

16%

Spend on Managed Services Providers

47%

IT Services Merger & Acquisition Growth (Transactions)

Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

Executive Summary

Common Obstacles

When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an “expected value” associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

A contract’s realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech’s Approach

A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

Info-Tech’s Methodology for Creating and Operating Your VMI

Insight Summary

Insight 1

Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won’t look exactly like another organization’s. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

Insight 2

All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

Insight 3

Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

Blueprint Deliverables

The four phases of creating and running a vendor management initiative are supported with configurable tools, templates, and checklists to help you stay aligned internally and achieve your goals.

VMI Tools and Templates

Build a solid foundation for your VMI and configure tools and templates to help you manage your vendor relationships.

Key Deliverables:

1. Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium
2. Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
3. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
4. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

A suite of tools and templates to help you create and implement your vendor management initiative.

Blueprint benefits

IT Benefits

• Identify and manage risk proactively.
• Reduce costs and maximize value.
• Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
• Improve vendor performance.
• Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
• Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

Business Benefits

• Improve vendor accountability.
• Increase collaboration between departments.
• Improve working relationships with your vendors.
• Create a feedback loop to address vendor or customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
• Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

Establish Baseline Metrics

Baseline metrics will be improved through:

Using the Maturity Assessment and 90-Day Plan tools, track how well you are able to achieve your goals and objectives:

• Did you meet the targeted maturity level for each maturity category as determined by the point system?
• Did you finish each activity in the 90-Day Plan completely and on time?

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1: Plan

Get Organized

1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
1.2 Scope
1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
1.5 Process Mapping
1.6 Charter
1.7 Vendor Inventory
1.8 Maturity Assessment
1.9 Structure

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 1: Plan

Get organized.

Phase 1: Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (mission statement, goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, roles and responsibilities, and process mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of standing up your VMI and running it.

Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to “the good stuff.” To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn’t start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

Step 1.1: Mission statement and goals

Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve.

Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a mission statement and goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

The mission statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The mission statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

The complement to the mission statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your mission statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

Although the VMI’s mission statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be re-evaluated periodically using a SMART filter and adjusted as needed.

1.1.1: Mission statement and goals

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the reasons why the VMI will exist.
2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
4. Draft and document your mission statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
8. Obtain sign-off on the mission statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

Input

• Brainstorming results
• Mission statements from other internal and external sources

Output

• Completed mission statement and goals

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.2: Scope

Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn’t do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI’s mission statement and goals.

One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI scope. The scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI’s territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI’s roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work): Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are on board with the final version.

1.2.1: Scope

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
   1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
   2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope but not both.
3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope, to document the results.
4. Obtain sign-off on the scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

Input

• Brainstorming
• Mission statement and goals

Output

• Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.3: Strengths and obstacles

Pinpoint the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles facing the VMI. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

1.3.1: Strengths and obstacles

20-40 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.
   1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
   2. Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the strengths and then turn your attention to the obstacles.
   3. It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.
2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.
3. Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.
4. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles, to document the results.
5. Obtain sign-off on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Mission statement and goals
• Scope

Output

• Completed list of items impacting the VMI’s ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

Materials

• Whiteboard/Flip Charts
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities

Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI’s scope, referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other’s toes since many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or one department to complete this process.) While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you’ll be able to say, “Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is.”

*RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
*RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed
*OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities (cont.)

Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but the chart can get out of hand quickly. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary – does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps: 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is “negotiate contract documents” sufficient or do you need “negotiate the contract” and “negotiate the renewal”? The answer will always depend on your culture and environment, but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it in its entirety.

After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

• O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
• I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
• C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

1.4.1: Roles and responsibilities

1-6 hours

1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
   1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
   2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step; I for informed; or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
5. Obtain sign-off on the OIC chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• A list of activities or steps to complete a project, starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management
• A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project

Output

• Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

Participants

• VMI team
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Representatives from other areas as needed
• Applicable stakeholders and executives as needed

Step 1.5: Process mapping

Diagram the workflow.

Although policies and procedures are important, their nature can make it difficult to grasp how things work at a high level (or even at the detail level). To help bridge the gap, map the applicable processes (determined by how deep and wide you want to go) involving the VMI. To start, look at the OIC chart from Step 1.4. You can expand the breadth and depth of your mapping to include the VMI scope, the 3-year roadmap (see Step 2.9), and the processes driven by the day-to-day work within the VMI.

Various mapping tools can be used. Three common approaches that can be mixed and matched are:

• Traditional flowcharts.
• Swimlane diagrams.
• Work breakdown structures.

Step 1.5: Process mapping (cont.)

Diagram the workflow.

Your goal is not to create an in-depth diagram for every step of the vendor management lifecycle. However, for steps owned by the VMI, the process map should include sufficient details for the owner and the contributors (see Step 1.4) to understand what is required of them to support that step in the lifecycle.

For VMI processes that don’t interact with other departments, follow the same pattern as outlined above for steps owned by the VMI.

Whatever methodology you use to create your process map, make sure it includes enough details so that readers and users can identify the following elements:

• Input:
  • What are the inputs?
  • Where do the inputs originate or come from?
• Process:
  • Who is involved/required for this step?
  • What happens to the inputs in this step?
  • What additional materials, tools, or resources are used or required during this step?
• Output:
  • What are the outputs?
  • Where do the outputs go next?

1.5.1: Process Mapping

1-8 hours (or more)

1. Meet with the participants and determine which processes you want to map.
   1. For processes owned by the VMI, map the entire process.
   2. For processes contributed to by the VMI, map the entire process at a high level and map the VMI portion of the process in greater detail.
2. Select the right charts/diagrams for your output.
   1. Flowchart
   2. Swimlane diagram
   3. Modified SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer)
   4. WBS (work breakdown structure)
3. Begin mapping the processes either in a tool or using sticky notes. You want to be able to move the steps and associated information easily; most people don’t map the entire process accurately or with sufficient detail the first time through. An iterative approach works best.
4. Obtain signoff on the process maps from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping, if desired.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Existing processes (formal, informal, documented, and undocumented)
• OIC chart

Output

• Process maps for processes contributed to or owned by the VMI

Materials

• Sticky Notes
• Flowchart/process mapping software or something similar
• (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping

Participants

• VMI team
• Procurement/Sourcing
• IT
• Representatives from other areas as needed
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.6: Charter

Document how the VMI will operate.

As you continue getting organized by working through steps 1.1-1.5, you may want to document your progress in a charter and add some elements. Basically, a charter is a written document laying out how the VMI will operate within the organization. It clearly states the VMI’s mission, goals, scope, roles and responsibilities, and vendor governance model. In addition, it can include a list of team members and sponsors.

Whether you create a VMI charter will largely depend on:

• Your organization’s culture.
• Your organization’s formality.
• The perceived value of creating a charter.

If you decide to create a VMI charter, this is a good place in the process to create an initial draft. As you continue working through the blueprint and your VMI matures, update the VMI charter as needed.

VMI Charter:

• Purpose
• Sponsors
• Roles
• Responsibilities
• Governance

1.6.1: Charter

1-4 hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the template in Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter.
2. Determine whether the participants will use this template or add materials to your standard charter template.
3. Complete as much of the charter as possible, knowing that some information may not be available until later.
4. Return to the charter as needed until it is completed.
5. Obtain sign-off on the charter from stakeholders and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Mission statement and goals
• Scope
• Strengths and obstacles
• OIC chart
• List of stakeholders and executives and their VMI roles and responsibilities

Output

• Completed VMI charter

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter
• Your organization’s standard charter document

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.7: Vendor inventory

Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

As you prepare your VMI for being operational, it’s critical to identify all of your current vendors providing IT products or services to the organization. This can be tricky and may depend on how you view things internally. For example, you may have traditional IT vendors that are managed by IT, and you may have IT vendors that are managed by other internal departments (shadow IT or out-in-the-open IT). If it wasn’t determined with the help of stakeholders and executives before now, make sure you establish the purview of the VMI at this point. What types of vendors are included and excluded from the VMI?

You may find that a vendor can be included and excluded based on the product or service they provide. A vendor may provide a service that is managed by IT and a service that is managed/controlled by another department. In this instance, a good working relationship and clearly defined roles and responsibilities between the VMI and the other department will be required. But, it all starts with compiling a list of vendors and validating the VMI’s purview (and any limitations) for the vendors with stakeholders and executives.

Step 1.7: Vendor inventory (cont.)

Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

At a minimum, the VMI should be able to quickly retrieve key information about each of “its” vendors:

• Vendor Name
• Classification (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1)
• Categories of Service
• Names of Products and Services Provided
• Brief Descriptions of Products and Services Provided
• Annualized Vendor Spend
• Vendor Contacts
• Internal Vendor Relationship Owner

Not all of this information will be available at this point, but you can begin designing or configuring your tool to meet your needs. As your VMI enters Phase 3: Run and continues to mature, you will return to this tool and update the information. For example, the vendor classification category won’t be known until Phase 3, and it can change over time.

1.7.1: Vendor inventory

1-10 hours

Meet with the participants and review the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory. Determine whether the VMI wants to collect and/or monitor additional information and make any necessary modifications to the tool.

Enter the “Annual IT Vendor Spend” amount in the appropriate cell toward the top of the spreadsheet. This is for IT spend for vendor-related activities within the VMI’s scope; include shadow IT spend and “non-shadow” IT spend if those vendors will be included in the VMI’s scope.

Populate the data fields for your top 50 vendors by annual spend; you may need multiple entries for the same vendor depending on the nature of the products and services they provide.

Ignore the “Classification” column for now; you will return to this later when classification information is available.

Ignore the “Percentage of IT Budget” column as well; it uses a formula to calculate this information.

Input

• Data from various internal and external sources such as accounts payable, contracts, and vendor websites

Output

• List of vendors with critical information required to manage relationships with key vendors

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

Participants

• VMI team (directly)
• Other internal and external personnel (indirectly)

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

Step 1.8: Maturity assessment

Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

Knowing where you are and where you want to go are essential elements for any journey in the physical world, and the same holds true for your VMI journey. Start by assessing your current-state VMI maturity. This will provide you with a baseline to measure progress against. Next, using the same criteria, determine the level of VMI maturity you would like to achieve one year in the future. This will be your future-state VMI maturity. Lastly, identify the gaps and plot your course.

The maturity assessment provides three main benefits:

1. Focus – you’ll know what is important to you moving forward.
2. 3-Year Roadmap (discussed more fully in Step 2.9) – you’ll have additional input for your short-term and long-term roadmap (1, 2, and 3 years out).
3. Quantifiable Improvement – you’ll be able to measure your progress and make midcourse corrections when necessary.

Step 1.8: Maturity assessment (cont.)

Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

The Info-Tech VMI Maturity Assessment tool evaluates your maturity across several criteria across multiple categories. Once completed, the assessment will specify:

• A current-state score by category and overall.
• A target-state score by category and overall.
• A quantifiable gap for each criterion.
• A priority assignment for each criterion.
• A level of effort required by criterion to get from the current state to the target state.
• A target due date by criterion for achieving the target state.
• A rank order for each criterion (note: limit your ranking to your top 7 or 9).

Many organizations will be tempted to mature too quickly. Resource constraints and other items from Step 1.3 (Strengths and Obstacles) will impact how quickly you can mature. Being aggressive is fine, but it must be tempered with a dose of reality. Otherwise, morale, perception, and results can suffer.

1.8.1: Maturity assessment

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and use Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input, to complete the first part of this activity. Provide the required information indicated below.
   1. Review each statement in column B and enter a value in the “Current” column using the drop-down menus based on how much you disagree or agree (0-4) with the statement. This establishes a baseline maturity.
   2. Repeat this process for the “Future” column using a target date of one year from now to achieve this level. This is your desired maturity.
   3. Enter information regarding priority, level of effort, and target due date in the applicable columns using the drop-down menus. (Priority levels are critical, high, medium, low, and maintain; Levels of Effort are high, medium, and low; Target Due Dates are broken into timelines: 1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, and 10-12 months.)
2. Review the information on Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output; use the Distribution Tables to help you rank your top priorities. Enter a unique number into the Priority (Rank) column. Limit your ranking to the top 7 to 9 activities to provide focus.

Input

• Knowledge of current VMI practices and desired future states

Output

• VMI maturity baseline
• Desired VMI target maturity state (in one year)
• Prioritized areas to improve and due dates
• Graphs and tables to identify maturity deltas and track progress

Materials

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input
• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 1.9: Structure

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

There are two parts to the VMI structure:

1. Organization Structure. Who owns the VMI – where does it fit on the organization chart?
2. Reporting Structure. What is the reporting structure within the VMI – what are the job functions, titles, and solid and dotted lines of accountability?

VMI Organization Structure

The decision regarding who owns the VMI can follow one of two paths:

1. The decision has already been made by the board of directors, executives, senior leadership, or stakeholders; OR
2. The decision has not been made, and options will be reviewed and evaluated before it is implemented.

Many organizations overlook the importance of this decision. The VMI’s position on the organization chart can aid or hinder its success. Whether the decision has already been made or not, this is the perfect time to evaluate the decision or options based on the following question: Why is the VMI being created and how will it operate? Review the documents you created during Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors to answer this question.

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors, select where the VMI will be best located from the following areas/offices or their equivalent:

• Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
• Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)
• Chief Operating Officer (COO)
• Other area

Without the proper support and placement in the organization chart, the VMI can fail. It is important for the VMI to find a suitable home with a direct connection to one of the sponsors identified above and for the VMI lead to have significant stature (aka title) within the organization. For example, if the VMI lead is a “manager” level who is four reporting layers away from the chief officer/sponsor, the VMI will have an image issue within and outside of the sponsor’s organization (as well as within the vendor community). While this is not to say that the VMI lead should be a vice president* or senior director, our experience and research indicate that the VMI and the VMI lead will be taken more seriously when the VMI lead is at least a director level reporting directly to a CXO.

*For purposes of the example above, the reporting structure hierarchy used is manager, senior manager, director, senior director, vice president, CXO.

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

VMI Reporting Structure

As previously mentioned, the VMI reporting structure describes and identifies the job functions, titles, and lines of accountability. Whether you have a formal vendor management office or you are leveraging the principles of vendor management informally, your VMI reporting structure design will involve some solid lines and some dotted lines. In this instance, the dotted lines represent part-time participation or people/areas that will assist the VMI in some capacity. For example, if the VMI sits within IT, a dotted line to Procurement will show that a good working relationship is required for both parties to succeed; or a dotted line to Christina in Legal will indicate that Christina will be helping the VMI with legal issues.

There is no one-size-fits-all reporting structure for VMIs, and your approach must leverage the materials from Steps 1.1-1.8, your culture, and your needs. By way of example, your VMI may include some or all of the following functions:

• Contract Management
• Relationship Management
• Financial Management
• Asset Management
• Performance Management
• Sourcing/Procurement
• Risk Management

Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

Once you’ve identified the functional groups, you can assign titles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. A good diagram goes a long way to helping others understand your organization. Traditional organization charts work well with VMIs, but a target diagram allows for rapid absorption of the dotted-line relationships. Review the two examples below and determine an approach that works best for you.

1.9.1: Structure

15-60 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review decisions that have been made or options that are available regarding the VMI’s placement in the organization chart.
   1. Common options include the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
   2. Less common but viable options include the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), or another area.
2. Brainstorm and determine the job functions and titles
3. Define the reporting structure within the VMI.
4. Identify the “dotted line” relationships between the VMI and other internal areas.
5. Using flowchart, org. chart, or other similar software, reduce your results to a graphic representation that indicates where the VMI resides, its reporting structure, and its dotted-line relationships.
6. Obtain sign-off on the structure from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure, if desired.

Input

• Mission statement and goals
• Scope
• Maturity assessment results (current and target state)
• Existing org. charts
• Brainstorming

Output

• Completed org. chart with job titles and reporting structure

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip chart
• Sticky notes
• Flowchart/org. chart software or something similar
• (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure

Participants

• VMI team
• VMI sponsor
• Stakeholders and executives

Phase 2: Build

Create and Configure Tools, Templates, and Processes

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Human Resources
• Legal
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 2: Build

Create and configure tools, templates, and processes.

Phase 2: Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug-and-play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

During this Phase, you’ll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you’ll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

Step 2.1: Classification model

Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech’s COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2x2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor’s classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI’s maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get you started and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.

Step 2.1: Classification model (cont.)

Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

Common Characteristics by Vendor Management Category

Source: Compiled in part from Stephen Guth, “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)”

2.1.1: Classification Model

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration, for your environment.
2. Sort the data from Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory, by spend; if you used multiple line items for a vendor in the Vendor Inventory tab, you will have to aggregate the spend data for this activity.
3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
   1. Cell F14 – set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009,850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
   2. Cell G14 – set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
   3. Cell H14 – set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
   4. Cells I14 and J14 – divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

Input

• Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

Output

• Configured Vendor Classification Tool

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.2: Risk assessment tool

Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on.

One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and many others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

Risk management is a program, not a project – there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and can have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

While the VMI won’t necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function. (See Steps 2.12 and 3.8.)

At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

• Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
• Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
• Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
• Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how you handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

2.2.1: Risk assessment tool

30-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool, Tab 1. Set Parameters, for your environment.
2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

Input

• Scope
• OIC Chart
• Process Maps
• Brainstorming

Output

• Configured Vendor Classification Tool

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a report card you received when you were in school. At the end of a learning cycle, you received feedback on how well you did in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some different nuances and some additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the main focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Anatomy

The Info-Tech Scorecard includes five areas:

• Measurement Categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what’s important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
• Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
• Measurement Category Weights. Not all of your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
• Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
• Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Goals and Objectives

Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are listed below:

• Improve vendor performance.
• Convey expectations to the vendor.
• Identify and recognize top vendors.
• Increase alignment between the parties.
• Improve communication with the vendor.
• Compare vendors across the same criteria.
• Measure items not included in contract metrics.
• Identify vendors for “strategic alliance” consideration.
• Help the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.
• Identify and resolve issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out and composed of meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five categories to help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

1. Timeliness – responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
2. Cost – total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
3. Quality – accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
4. Personnel – skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
5. Risk – adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Additional Considerations

• Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don’t assume your “Rating Key” will be intuitive.
• When assigning weights, don’t go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won’t be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn’t “move the needle,” don’t include it.
• Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside of the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
• You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: “The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone’s high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us.”* Convey your expectations and let the vendors’ competitive juices take over.
• While you’re creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors as part of your vendor orientation (see steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

*Source: The Decision Lab, 2020

Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

Vendor Feedback

After you’ve built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without the dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use. Our recommendation is to avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You’ll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful, information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don’t be in a rush though. So long as the informal method works, keep using it.

2.3.1: Scorecards and feedback

30-60 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
   1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
   2. What differentiates a “good” vendor from a “bad” vendor?
   3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors; choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
5. Document your results as you go in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Configured scorecard template

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

2.3.2: Scorecards and feedback

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
   1. Help you improve the relationship.
   2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
   3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
   4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The final results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a great, multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional “operational” meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The main focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed and other purposes are served. For example, you can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor’s leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list; you can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call); you can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed; you can clarify your expectations; you can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization; and you can learn more about the vendor.

As you build your BAM agenda, someone in your organization may say, “Oh, that’s just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting.” However, in most instances, an existing QBR or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, Procurement, or another department, “We’re going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors.” The typical response is, “There’s no need to do that. We already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors.” This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI’s needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

BAMs are conducted at the vendor level … not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor’s classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

• Commodity Vendors – Not applicable
• Operational Vendors – Biannually or annually
• Strategic Vendors – Quarterly
• Tactical Vendors – Quarterly or biannually

BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

• Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
• Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
• Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

BAM Agenda

• Opening Remarks
  • Welcome and introductions
  • Review of previous minutes
• Active Discussion
  • Review of open issues
  • Scorecard and feedback
  • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
  • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
  • Accomplishments
• Closing Remarks
  • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
  • Recap
• Adjourn

2.4.1: Business alignment meeting agenda

20-45 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
   1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
   2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
   3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback.
3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
4. Document the final BAM agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

Output

• Configured BAM agenda

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.5: Relationship alignment document

Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors.

Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.5]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other’s expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the relationship alignment document (RAD). Depending upon the scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

Early in the VMI’s maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (i.e. 1 page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on 1) what you believe is important for the vendors to understand, and 2) any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. For example, you may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept gifts from vendors above a nominal value such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website’s vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

Info-Tech Insight

The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

2.5.1: Relationship alignment document

1-4 hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
2. Determine:
   1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
   2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
   3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
   4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

Output

• Completed relationship alignment document(s)

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

Participants

• VMI team
• Marketing, as needed
• Legal, as needed

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and “customers” (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations’ VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

• Orientation
• Reorientation
• Debrief

Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Orientation

Orientation is conceptually similar to new hire orientation for employees at your organization. Generally conducted as a meeting, orientation provides your vendors with the information they need to be successful when working with your organization. Sadly, this is often overlooked by customers; it can take months or years for vendors to figure it out by themselves. By controlling the narrative and condensing the timeline, vendor relationships and performance improve more rapidly.

A partial list of topics for orientation is set out below:

• Your organization’s structure
• Your organization’s culture
• Your relationship expectations
• Your governances (VMI and other)
• Their vendor classification designation (commodity, operational, strategic, or tactical)
• The scorecard process
• Business alignment meetings
• Relationship alignment documents

In short, this is the first step toward building (or continuing to build) a robust, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship with your important vendors.

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Reorientation

Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for a number of reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:

• There is a significant change in the vendor’s products or services.
• The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
• A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
• Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
• The vendor has been placed in a “performance improvement plan” or “relationship improvement plan” protocol.
• Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
• Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
• The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.

As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine its scope, scale, and frequency.

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

Debrief

To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is similar to an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization – all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor’s classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don’t go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor’s experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. In addition, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don’t burn bridges!

Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

• As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.
• For orientation and reorientation:
  • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
  • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization … your VMI?
  • What and how are you different from other organizations overall … in your “industry”?
  • What will help them understand your expectations?
  • What will help them be more successful?
  • What will help you build the relationship?
• For debrief:
  • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
  • What information or feedback to you want to give?
• The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

2.6.1: Vendor orientation

1 to several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation.
   1. Use the orientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your orientation meetings.
   2. Use the reorientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your reorientation meetings.
2. The selections can be made by classification category (i.e. different items can apply to strategic, operational, and tactical vendors).
3. Create the materials and seek input and/or approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as needed.
4. Use the debrief section of the tool to create an agenda, list the questions you want to ask vendors, and list information you want to provide to vendors. The agenda, questions, and information can be segregated by classification category.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming

Output

• Agendas and materials for orientation, reorientation, and debrief

Materials

• Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.7: Job descriptions

Ensure new and existing job descriptions are up to date.

Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.9, it’s time to start drafting new or modifying existing job descriptions applicable to the VMI team members. Some of the VMI personnel may be dedicated full-time to the VMI, while others may be supporting the VMI on a part-time basis. At a minimum, create or modify your job descriptions based on the categories set out below. Remember to get the internal experts involved so that you stay true to your environment and culture.

01 Title

This should align overall with what the person will be doing and what the person will be responsible for. Your hands may be tied with respect to titles, but try to make them intuitively descriptive if possible.

02 Duties

This is the main portion of the job description. List the duties, responsibilities, tasks, activities, and results expected. Again, there may be some limitations imposed by your organization, but be as thorough as possible.

03 Qualifications

This tends to be a gray area for many organizations, with the qualifications, certifications, and experience desired expressed in “ranges” so that good candidates are not eliminated from consideration unnecessarily.

2.7.1: Job descriptions

1 to several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the VMI structure from Step 1.9.
   1. List the positions that require new job descriptions.
   2. List the positions that require updated job descriptions.
2. Review the other Phase 1 work product and list the responsibilities, tasks, and functions that need to be incorporated into the new and updated job descriptions.
3. Review the sample VMI job descriptions and sample VMI job description language in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions, and identify language and concepts you want to include in the new and revised job descriptions.
4. Using your template, draft the new job descriptions and modify the existing job descriptions to synchronize with the VMI structure. Work with other internal areas such as Human Resources to ensure cultural fit and compliance.
5. Obtain input and signoff on the job descriptions from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Human Resources, and others as needed.
6. Document your final job descriptions in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Existing job descriptions
• Work product from Phase 1

Output

• Job descriptions for new positions
• Updated job descriptions for existing positions

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions

Participants

• VMI team
• Human Resources (as needed)
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Policies and procedures are often thought of as boring documents that are 1) tedious to create, 2) seldom read after creation, and 3) only used to punish people when they do something “wrong.” However, when done well, these documents:

• Communicate expectations.
• Capture institutional knowledge.
• Provide guidance for decision making.
• Help workers avoid errors and minimize risk.
• Ensure regulatory and organizational compliance.
• List the steps required to achieve consistent results.

Definitions of Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are essential, but they are often confused with each other. A policy is a rule, guideline, or framework for making decisions. For example, in the vendor management space, you may want a policy indicating your organization’s view on gifts from vendors. A procedure is a set of instructions for completing a task or activity. For example, staying in the vendor management space, you may want a procedure to outline the process for classifying vendors.

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Start With Your Policy/Procedure Template or Create One for Consistency

When creating policies and procedures, follow your template. If you don’t have one (or want to see if anything is missing from your template) the following list of potential components for your governance documents is provided.* Not every concept is required. Use your judgment and err on the side of caution when drafting; balance readability and helpfulness against over documenting and over complicating.

• Descriptive Title
• Policy Number
• Brief Overview
• Purpose
• Scope
• The Policy or Procedure
• Definitions
• Revision Date
• History
• Related Documents
• Keywords

Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

Although they are not ever going to be compared to page-turning novels, policies and procedures can be improved by following a few basic principles. By following the guidelines set out below, your VMI policies and procedures will contribute to the effectiveness of your initiative.*

• Use short sentences.
• Organize topics logically.
• Use white space liberally.
• Use mandatory language.
• Use gender-neutral terms.
• Write with an active voice.
• Avoid jargon when possible.
• Use a consistent “voice” and tone.
• Use pictures or diagrams when they will help.
• Write in the same tense throughout the document.
• Use icons and colors to designate specific elements.
• Make sure links to other policies and procedures work.
• Define all acronyms and jargon (when it must be used).
• Avoid a numbering scheme with more than three levels.

*Adapted in part from smartsheet.com

Info-Tech Insight

Drafting policies and procedures is an iterative process that requires feedback from the organization’s leadership team.

2.8.1: Policies and procedures

Several hours

1. Meet with the participants and review the sample policies and procedures topics in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
2. Determine:
   1. The concepts you want to include in your policies and procedures; brainstorm for any additional concepts you want to include.
   2. The format/template for your policies and procedures.
3. Draft your policies and procedures based on the sample topics and your brainstorming activity. Work with other internal areas such as Legal and Human Resources to ensure cultural and environmental fit within your organization.
4. Obtain input and signoff on the policies and procedures from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Human Resources, and others as needed.
5. Document your final policies and procedures in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
6. Publish your policies and procedures and conduct training sessions or awareness sessions as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Existing policies and procedures (if any)
• Existing policies and procedures template (if any)
• Scope
• OIC chart
• Process maps
• Brainstorming

Output

• VMI policies and procedures

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures

Participants

• VMI team
• Legal and Human Resources (as needed)
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.9: 3-year roadmap

Plot your path at a high level.

The VMI exists in many planes concurrently: 1) it operates both tactically and strategically, and 2) it focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g. the past, the present, and the future). Creating a 3-year roadmap facilitates the VMI’s ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1: Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization as a whole are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in Year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won’t change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the Year-1 ramp-up period.

Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the Year 1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start Year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during Year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during Year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during Year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in Year 2 or 3 as you mature.

Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

2.9.1: 3-year roadmap

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate Year 1 of your 3-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
2. Review the VMI activities listed in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
   1. For any Year-1 or Year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g. if a Year 2 activity will continue in Year 3, put an X in Year 3 as well).
   2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or “X’s.” For example, “Scorecards begin in Year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in Year 2 and nine vendors in Year 3.”
5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.8 work product
• Brainstorming

Output

• High level 3-year roadmap for the VMI

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.10: 90-day plan

Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans.

Now that you have prepared a 3-year roadmap, it’s time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year. The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track: Activities Tasks comprising each activity Who will be performing the tasks An estimate of the time required per person per task An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity A due date for the activity A priority of the activity The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the 3-year roadmap and the leadership team as necessary.

2.10.1: 90-day plan

45-90 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first 90-day plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
2. Looking at the Year 1 section of the 3-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
3. Using the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
   1. Activity description
   2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive)
   3. The people who will be performing each task
   4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task
   5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity
4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
5. Assign a priority to each activity.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• 3-year roadmap
• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.9 work product
• Brainstorming

Output

• Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or 90 days

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Step 2.11: Quick wins

Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately.

As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

• Are achievable within the stated timeline.
• Don’t require a lot of effort.
• Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a “stop doing stupid stuff” approach.
• Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
• Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI’s reputation.

As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That’s ok … don’t force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and 3-year roadmap, and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with this Step 2.11 identified anything new.

2.11.1: Quick wins

15-30 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the 3-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
   1. Quickly (30 days or less)
   2. With minimal effort
   3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum
2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
4. Document the list in the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins.
5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• 3-year roadmap
• 90-day plan
• Brainstorming

Output

• A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins

Participants

• VMI team

Step 2.12: Reports

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI’s internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

• What information are they looking for … what will help them understand the big picture?
• What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
• What items are universal to all of the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
• How easy or hard will it be to collect the data … who will be providing it, how time consuming will it be?
• How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
• How frequently will each report need to be issued?

Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

• Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
• Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
• Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
• Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won’t be able to cater to or please everyone.

Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

The report’s formatting and content display can make or break your reports.*

• Make the report look inviting and easy to read. Use:
  • Short paragraphs and bullet points.
  • A simple layout and uncluttered, wide margins.
  • Minimal boldface, underline, or italics to attract the readers’ attention.
  • High contrast between text and background.
• Charts, graphs, and infographics should be intuitive and tell the story on their own.
• Make it easy to peruse the report for topics of interest.
  • Maintain consistent design features.
  • Use impactful, meaningful headings and subheadings.
  • Include callouts to draw attention to important high-level information.
• Demonstrate the impact of the accomplishments or success stories when appropriate.
• Finish with a simple concise summary when appropriate. Consider adding:
  • Key points for the reader to takeaway.
  • Action items or requests.
  • Plans for next reporting period.

*Sources: Adapted and compiled in part from: designeclectic.com, ahrq.gov, and 60secondmarketer.com.

2.12.1: Reports

15-45 minutes

1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phases 1 and 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
   1. Internally to personnel within the VMI
   2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI
   3. Externally to vendors
3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
5. Document your final choices in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports.

Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

Input

• Brainstorming
• Phase 1 work product
• Steps 2.1-2.11 work product

Output

• A list of reports used by the VMI
• For each report:
• The conceptual content
• A list of who will receive or have access
• A creation/distribution frequency

Materials

• Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports

Participants

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

Phase 3: Run

Implement Your Processes and Leverage Your Tools and Templates

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 3: Run

Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates.

All of the hard work invested in Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build begins to pay off in Phase 3: Run. It’s time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There’s more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn’t mean there won’t be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

Phase 3: Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

• Manage risk better.
• Improve vendor performance.
• Improve vendor relationships.
• Identify areas where the parties can improve.
• Improve communication between the parties.
• Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors

Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend.

Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3: Run. The results of your classification process will determine: which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.4); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.5); the nature and content of the vendor orientation activities (Step 3.3); which vendors will be part of the risk measurement and monitoring process (Step 3.8); which vendors will be included in the reports issued by the VMI (Step 3.9); and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.10).

As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

1. Using the information from the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7), identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
   1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to next page.
   2. If the results are not what you expected or contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page – some legitimate results are unexpected or surprising based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed.

3. Run your top 11 through 25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results or surprises. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b, previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4, below.
4. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
   1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
   2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization’s roadmap, the vendor’s roadmap, or other information not available to you.
5. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates.

6. Update the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the Vendor Inventory tab by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
7. Review your 3-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.10) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

Additional classification considerations:

• You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have a large number of vendors, even 5% may be too many. The classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the “math” at the end of the day.
• At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can’t handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI’s rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Align your vendor strategy to your classification results.

As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all of your vendors are of equal importance.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Be careful when using the word “partner” with your strategic and other vendors.

For decades, vendors have used the term “partner” to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. In many regards, this is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms “partner” and “partnership” let’s evaluate them through two more-objective, less-cynical lenses.

If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

What about a “business” partnership … one that doesn’t involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

• Trust and transparent communication exist.
• You have input into the vendor’s roadmap for products and services.
• The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
• You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
• There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
• The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
• You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
• The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
• Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

Understand the implications and how to leverage the words “partner” and “partnership.”

By now you might be thinking, “What’s all the fuss? Why does it matter?” At Info-Tech, we’ve seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

• Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
• Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
• Vendors no longer have to earn the customer’s business.
• Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
• Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
• Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
• One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: Be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

Step 3.2: Conduct internal “kickoff” meeting

Raise awareness about the VMI and its mission, vision, and goals.

To be effective, your VMI needs executive support, a clear vision, appropriate governances and tools, personnel with the right skills, and other items discussed in this blueprint. However, the VMI doesn’t exist in a vacuum … it can’t sit back and be reactive. As part of being proactive, the VMI must be aware of its brand and “market” its services. An effective way to market the VMI is to conduct an internal kickoff meeting. There are at least a couple of ways to do this:

• Host a meeting for stakeholders, executives, and others who will be contributing to the VMI processes (but are not part of the VMI). The meeting can be part of a townhall or standalone meeting; it can be done live or via a recorded video.
• Attend appropriate staff meetings and make your presentation.

With either approach above or one of your choosing, keep in mind the following objectives for your kickoff meeting:

• Make sure you provide a way for those in attendance to ask questions at that time and later. You want to create and foster a communication loop with the people who will be impacted by the VMI or participating with it.
• Raise awareness of your existence and personnel. Tell the VMI’s story by sharing your mission statement, goals, and scope; this will help dispel (or confirm) rumors about the VMI that often lead to confusion and faulty assumptions.
• As you share the VMI’s vision, connect the story to how the VMI will impact the organization and individuals and to how they can help. The VMI tends to be the least autonomous area within an organization; it needs the assistance of others to be successful. Convey an atmosphere of collaboration and appreciation for their help.

Host a kickoff meeting annually to kickoff the new year. Remind people of your story, announce successes from the past year, and indicate what the future year holds. Keep it brief, make it personal for the audience, and help them connect the names of VMI personnel to faces.

Step 3.3: Conduct vendor orientation

Introduce your VMI to your top vendors.

Based on the results from your vendor classification (Step 3.1) and your VMI deployment timeline, identify the vendors who will participate in the initial orientation meetings. Treat the orientation as a formal, required meeting for the vendors to attend. Determine the attendee list for your organization and the vendors, and send out invites. Ideally, you will want the account manager, a sales director or vice president, the “delivery” director or vice president, and an executive from the vendor in the meeting. From the customer side, you may need more than one or two people from the VMI to entice the vendor’s leadership team to attend; you may need attendance from your own leadership team to add weight or credibility to the meeting (unfortunately).

Before going into the meeting, make sure everyone on your side knows their roles and responsibilities, and review the agenda. Control the agenda or the meeting is likely to get out of hand and turn into a sales call.

Conduct orientation meetings even if the participating vendors have been doing business with you for several years. Don’t assume they know all about your organization and your VMI (even if their other clients have a VMI).

Run two or three orientation meetings and then review the “results.” What needs to be modified? What lessons have you learned? Make any necessary adjustments and continue rolling out the orientation meetings.

Early in the VMI’s deployment, reorientation and debrief may not be in play. As time passes, it is important to remember them! Use them when warranted to help with vendor alignment.

Step 3.4: Compile scorecards

Begin scoring your top vendors.

The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprising sub-teams where necessary.

The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all of the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you actually need it; you’ll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

Step 3.4: Compile scorecards (cont.)

Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors.

Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure that the right mix of data is provided. For example:

• If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
• If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
• If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for the person to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus among themselves.

After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You’ll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you’ll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other “priorities” will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared due to things beyond its control.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings

Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last.

At their core, BAMs aren’t that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

Who

Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time, you’ll add vendors until all of your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all of your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

Duration

Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Identify who will be invited and send out invitations.

Invitations

Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable, but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won’t change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is sufficient in most instances, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor’s leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

Invitees

Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor’s performance and the relationship. In addition, other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn’t get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

From the vendor’s side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the “product or service delivery” area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor’s organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Prepare for the meetings and maintain control.

Preparation

Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior as well.

Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

Make sure the vendor knows what materials it should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don’t want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

Running the BAM

Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor’s, not IT’s, not Procurement’s or Sourcing’s. Don’t let anyone hijack it.

Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

As a reminder, this is not a sales call, and this is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings.

More Leading Practices

• Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
• Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
• Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
• Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don’t go in cold; review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
• Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

Final Thoughts

• When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
• Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
• Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
• Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don’t paint a rosy picture where one doesn’t exist.
• A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

Step 3.6: Work the 90-day plan

Monitor your progress and share your results.

Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won’t take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn’t created in vain.

1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of “hiccup” along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project – this is part of the VMI’s branding and image.

Step 3.7: Manage the 3-year roadmap

Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present.

The 3-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three “crystal balls” attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for Year 1 may be fairly clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and Year 2 becomes Year 1.

To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

• Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
  • Review the Year 1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.6).
  • Review the Year 2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of Year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of Year 2, and time moves quickly.
  • Review the Year 3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review Year 3, it will be a “new” Year 3 that needs to be built.
• Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
• Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the 3-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

Step 3.8: Measure and monitor risk

Understand and manage risk levels.

Using the configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool (Step 2.2), confirm which risks you will be measuring and monitoring and identify the vendors that will be part of the initial risk management process. Generally, organizations start measuring and monitoring risk in two to five risk categories for two or three strategic vendors. Over time, additional risk categories and/or vendors can be added in waves. Resist the temptation to add risk categories or vendors into the mix too quickly. Expanding requires resources inside and outside of the VMI.

The VMI will rely heavily on other areas to provide input or the risk data, and the VMI needs to establish good working relationships with those areas. For example, if legal risk is something being measured and monitored, the VMI will need data from Legal on the number and nature of any lawsuits filed by or against the applicable vendors; the VMI will need data from Legal, Contract Management, or Procurement/Sourcing on the number and nature of any agreed upon deviations from your organization’s preferred contract terms that increase legal risk.

With respect to risk, the VMI’s main role is threefold: 1) take the data obtained from others (or in some instances the VMI may have the data) and turn it into useful information, 2) monitor the risk categories over time and periodically issue reports, and 3) work with other areas to manage the risk.

Step 3.9: Issue reports

Inform internal personnel and vendors about trends, issues, progress, and results.

Issuing the reports created in Step 2.12 is one of the main ways the VMI 1) will communicate with internal and external personnel and 2) track trends and information over time. Even with input from the potential reviewers of the reports, you’ll still want to seek their feedback and input periodically. It may take a few iterations until the reports are hitting their mark. You may find that a metric is no longer required, that a metric is missing completely or it is missing a component, or a formatting change would improve the report’s readability. Once a report has been “finalized,” try not to change it until you are engaged in Phase 4: Review activities. It can be unsettling for the reviewers when reports change constantly.

Whenever possible, find ways to automate the reports. While issuing reports is critical, the function should not consume more time than necessary. Automation can remove some of the manual and repetitive tasks.

Internal reports may need to be kept confidential. An automated dashboard or reporting tool can help lock down who has access to the information. At a minimum, the internal reports should contain a “Confidential” stamp, header, watermark, or other indicator that the materials are sensitive and should not be disclosed outside of your organization without approval.

Reports for vendors may not need to be sent as often as reports are generated or prepared for internal personnel. Establish a cadence by classification model category and stick to it. Letting each vendor choose the frequency will make it more difficult for you to manage. The vendors can choose to ignore the report if they so choose.

Step 3.10: Develop/improve vendor relationships

Drive better performance through better relationships.

One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don’t happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor’s sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations – not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which have to be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:*

• Focus your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
• Be transparent and honest in your communications.
• Continue building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
• Create a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
• Thank the vendor when appropriate.
• Resolve disputes early, avoid the “blame game,” and be objective when there are disagreements.

Step 3.11: Contribute to other processes

Continue assisting others and managing roles and responsibilities outside of the VMI.

The VMI has processes that it owns and processes that it contributes to. Based on the VMI scope (Step 1.2), the OIC chart (Step 1.4), and the process mapping activities (Step 1.5), ensure that the VMI is honoring its contribution commitments. This is often easier said than done though. A number of factors can make it difficult to achieve the balance required to handle VMI processes and contribute to other processes associated with the VMI’s mission and vision. Understanding the issues is half the battle. If you see signs of these common “vampires,” take action quickly to address the situation.

• The VMI’s first focus is often internal, and the tendency is to operate in a bubble. Classifying vendors, running BAMs, coordinating the risk process, and other inward-facing processes can consume all of the VMI’s energy. As a result, there is little time, effort, or let’s be honest, desire to participate in other processes outside of the VMI.
• It is easy for VMI personnel to get dragged into processes and situations that are outside of its scope. This often happens when personnel join the VMI from other internal areas or departments and have good relationships with their former teammates. The relationships make it hard to say “No” when out-of-scope assistance is being requested.
• The VMI may have “part-time” personnel who have responsibilities across internal departments, divisions, agencies, or teams. When the going gets tough and time is at a premium, people gravitate toward the easiest or most comfortable work. That work may not be VMI work.

Phase 4: Review

Keep Your VMI Up to Date and Running Smoothly

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

This phase involves the following participants:

• VMI team
• Applicable stakeholders and executives
• Others as needed

Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

Phase 4: Review

Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly.

As the old adage says, “The only thing constant in life is change.” This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature; people inside and outside of the VMI will change; resources will expand or contract from year to year; your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you’ll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person’s health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up to date and running smoothly takes hard work.

Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won’t happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, NOT reactive!

Step 4.1: Assess compliance

Determine what is functionally going well and not going well.

Whether you have a robust set of vendor management-related policies and procedures or they are the bare minimum, gathering data each quarter and conducting an assessment each year will provide valuable feedback. The scope of your assessment should focus on two concepts: 1) are the policies and procedures being followed and 2) are the policies and procedures accurate and relevant. This approach requires parallel thinking, but it will help you understand the complete picture and minimize the amount of time required.

Use the steps listed below (or modify them for your culture) to conduct your assessment:

• Determine the type of assessment – formal or informal.
• Determine the scale of the assessment – which policies and procedures will be reviewed and how many people will be interviewed.
• Determine the compliance levels, and seek feedback on the policies and procedures – what is going well and what can be improved?
• Review the compliance deviations.
• Conduct a root cause analysis for the deviations.
• Create a list of improvements and gain approval.
• Create a plan for minimizing noncompliance in the future.
  • Improve/increase education and awareness.
  • Clarify/modify policies and procedures.
  • Add resources, tools, and people (as necessary and as allowed).

Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices

Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing.

The VMI’s world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we’re looking at you COVID-19 and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices (cont.)

Update your VMI based on your research.

• A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
• Research:
  • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
  • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
  • Vendor management in general.
• Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
• Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
• Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned

Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members.

There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4: Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

• Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members’ brains.
• The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
• Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is “deposited” in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular “input” meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics – timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned (cont.)

Create a library to share valuable information across the team.

Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

• A brief description of the situation and outcome.
• What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
• What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
• What would/could you do differently next time?
• A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

Info-Tech Insights

The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

The lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information … not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

Step 4.4: Maintain internal alignment

Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync.

Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI’s alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

To ensure internal alignment:

• Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed, but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience’s interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
• Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don’t have access.
  • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
  • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
  • The organization itself.
• Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
• Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

Step 4.5: Update governances

Revise your protocols and return to the beginning of cyclical processes.

You’re at the final Step and ready to update governances. This is comprised of two sequential paths.

• First, use the information from Steps 4.1-4.4 to make any required modifications to the items in Phase 1: Plan, Phase 2: Build, and Phase 3: Run. For example, you may need to update your policies and procedures (Step 2.8) based on your findings in Step 4.1; or you may need to update the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2) to ensure internal alignment issues identified in Step 4.4. are accounted for.
• Second, return to Phase 3: Run to perform the activities below; they tend to be performed annually, but use your discretion and perform them on an as-needed basis:
  • Reclassify vendors.
  • Complete a new maturity assessment.
  • Run reorientation sessions for vendors.
  • Conduct a kickoff meeting to update internal personnel.

Other activities and tasks (e.g. scorecards and BAMs) may be impacted by the modifications made above, but the nature of their performance follows a shorter cadence. As a result, they are not specifically called out here in this Step 4.5 since they are performed on an ongoing basis. However, don’t overlook them as part of your update.

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is its scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization’s investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don’t overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Contact your account representative for more information

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

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Bibliography

“Best Practices for Writing Corporate Policies and Procedures.” PowerDMS, 29 Dec. 2020. Accessed 11 January 2022.

Duncan. “Top 10 Tips for Creating Compelling Reports.” Design Eclectic, 11 October 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

Eby, Kate. “Master Writing Policies, Procedures, Processes, and Work Instructions.” 1 June 2018, updated 19 July 2021. Accessed 11 January 2022.

“Enterprise Risk Management.” Protiviti, n.d. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.

Geller & Company. “World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality.” Spend Matters, 2003. Accessed 4 March 2019.

Guth, Stephen. “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More).” Citizens, 26 Feb. 2015. Web.

Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print.

“ISG Index 4Q 2021.” Information Services Group, Inc., 2022. Web.

“Six Tips for Making a Quality Report Appealing and Easy To Skim.” AHRQ, Oct. 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

Tucker, Davis. “Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports.” 60 Second Marketer, 28 March 2020. Accessed 29 March 2022.

“Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?” The Decision Lab, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 31 January 2022.

Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

They are not the same, and confusing the two concepts could be expensive

Analyst Perspective

Backups and archives are not interchangeable, but they can complement each other.

Backups and archives are two very different operations that are quite often confused or misplaced. IT and business leaders are tasked with protecting corporate data from a variety of threats. They also must conform to industry, geographical, and legal compliance regulations. Backup solutions keep the data safe from destruction. If you have a backup, why do you also need an archive? Archive solutions hold data for a long period of time and can be searched. If you have an archive, why do you also need a backup solution? Backups and archives used to be the same. Remember when you would keep the DAT tape in the same room as the argon gas fire suppression system for seven years? Now that's just not feasible. Some situations require a creative approach or a combination of backups and archives.

Understand the difference between archives and backups and you will understand why the two solutions are necessary and beneficial to the business.

P.J. Ryan
Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Keep in mind that backups are for recovery while archives are for discovery. Backups and archives are often confused but understanding the differences can result in significant savings of time and money. Backing up and archiving may be considered IT tasks but recovery and discovery are capabilities the business wants and is willing to pay for.

Archive

Tips & Tricks – Archiving

• Archiving will move older data to an alternate location. This will free up storage space in the production environment.
• Archiving solutions index the data to allow for easier searchability. This will aid in common business searches as well as assist with any potential legal searches.
• Archiving allows companies to hold onto data for historical purposes as well as for specific retention periods in compliance with industry and regional regulations such as SOX, GDPR, FISMA, as well as others (msp360.com).

Backup

Tips & Tricks – Backups

• Production data should be backed up on a regular basis, ideally once a day or more frequently if possible.
• Backups are intended to restore data when it gets deleted, over-written, or otherwise compromised. Most restore requests are from the last 24 to 48 hours, so it may be advantageous to keep a backup readily available on disk for a quick restore when needed.
• Some vendors and industry subject matter experts advocate the use of a 3-2-1 rule when it comes to backups:
  • Keep three copies of your production data
  • In at least two separate locations (some advocate two different formats), and
  • One copy should be offsite (nakivo.com)

Cold Storage

• Cold storage refers to a storage option offered by some cloud vendors. In the context of the discussion between backups and archives, it can be an option for a dedicated backup solution for a specific period. Cost is low and the data is protected from destruction.
• If an app has been replaced and all data transferred to the replacement solution but for some reason the company wishes to hold onto the data, you want a backup, not an archive. Extract the data, convert it into MongoDB or a similar solution, and drop it into cheap cloud storage (cold storage) for less than $5 per TB/month.

Case Study

Understanding the difference between archives and backups could save you a lot of time and money

INDUSTRY: Manufacturing | SOURCE: Info-Tech Research

Understanding the difference between an archive and a backup was the first step in solving their challenge.

A leading manufacturing company found themselves in a position where they had to decide between archiving or doing nothing.

The company had completed several acquisitions and ended up with multiple legacy applications that had been merged or migrated into replacement solutions. These legacy applications were very important to the original companies and although the data they held had been migrated to a replacement solution, executives felt they should hold onto these applications for a period of time, just in case.

Some of the larger applications were archived using a modern archiving solution, but when it came to the smaller applications, the cost to add them to the archiving solution greatly exceeded the cost to just keep them running and maintain the associated infrastructure.

A research advisor from Info-Tech Research Group joined a call with the manufacturing company and discussed their situation. The difference between archives and backups was explained and through the course of the conversation it was discovered that the solution was a modified backup. The application data had already been preserved through the migration, so data could be accessed in the production environment. The requirement to keep the legacy application up and running was not necessary but in compliance with the request to keep the information, the data could be exported from the legacy application into a non-sequential database, compressed, and stored in cloud-based cold storage for less than five dollars per terabyte per month. The manufacturing company’s staff realized that they could apply this same approach to several of their legacy applications and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

Understand the Difference Between Backups and Archives

Info-Tech Insight

Archives and backups are not the same, and there is a use case for each. Sometimes minor adjustments may be required to make the use case work. Understanding the basics of backups and archives can lead to significant savings at a monetary and effort level.

Additional Guidance

Case Study

Using tape backups as an archive solution could result in an expensive discovery and retrieval exercise.

INDUSTRY: Healthcare | SOURCE: Zasio Enterprises Inc.

“Do not commingle archive data with backup or disaster recovery tapes.”

A court case in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada involving Guardiola and Renown Health in 2015 is a good example of why using a backup solution to solve an archiving challenge is a bad idea.

Renown Health used a retention policy that declared any email older than six months of age as inactive and moved that email to a backup tape. Renown Health was ordered by the court to produce emails from a period of time in the past. Renown estimated that it would cost at least $248,000 to produce those emails, based on the effort involved to restore data from each tape and search for the email in question. Renown Health argued that this long and expensive process would result in undue costs.

The court reviewed the situation and ruled against Renown Health and ordered them to comply with the request (Zasio.com).

A proper archiving solution would have provided a quick and low-cost method to retrieve the emails in question.

Backups and archives are complementary to each other

• Archives are still production data, but the data does not change. A backup is recommended for the archived data, but the frequency of the backups can be lowered.
• Backups protect you if a disaster strikes by providing a copy of the production data that was compromised or damaged. Archives allow you to access older data that may have just been forgotten, not destroyed or compromised. Archives could also protect you in a legal court case by providing data that is older but may prove your argument in court.

Archives and backups are not the same.

Backups copy your data. Archives move your data. Backups facilitate recovery. Archives facilitate discovery.

Is it a backup or archive?

• You want to preserve older data for legal and compliance reasons, so you put extra effort into keeping your tape backups safe and secure for seven years. That’s a big mistake that may cost you time and money. You want an archive solution.
• You replace your older application and migrate all data to the new system, but you want to hold onto the old data, just in case. That’s a backup, not an archive.
• A long serving senior executive recently left the company. You want to preserve the contents of the executive's laptop in case it is needed in the future. That’s a backup.

Considerations When Choosing Between Solutions

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	Data Archiving Policy

Bibliography

“Backup vs. archiving: Know the difference.” Open-E. Accessed 05 Mar 2022.Web.

G, Denis. “How to build retention policy.” MSP360, Jan 3, 2020. Accessed 10 Mar 2022.

Ipsen, Adam. “Archive vs Backup: What’s the Difference? A Definition Guide.” BackupAssist, 28 Mar 2017. Accessed 04 Mar 2022.

Kang, Soo. “Mitigating the expense of E-discovery; Recognizing the difference between back-ups and archived data.” Zasio Enterprises, 08 Oct 2015. Accessed 3 Mar 2022.

Mayer, Alex. “The 3-2-1 Backup Rule – An Efficient Data Protection Strategy.” Naviko. Accessed 12 Mar 2022.

“What is Data-Archiving?” Proofpoint. Accessed 07 Mar 2022.

Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

Drive up CSAT scores by asking the right questions and effectively responding to user feedback.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Collecting feedback is only half the equation.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before, if their opinion is sought out and then ignored. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

Traditional service desk metrics can be misleading

The watermelon effect

When a service desk appears to hit all its targets according to the metrics it tracks, but service delivery is poor and customer satisfaction is low, this is known as the “watermelon effect”. Service metrics appear green on the outside, but under the surface (unmeasured), they’re red because customers are dissatisfied.

Traditional SLAs and service desk metrics (such as time to respond, average resolution time, percentage of SLAs met) can help you understand service desk performance internally to prioritize your work and identify process improvements. However, they don’t tell you how customers perceive the service or how satisfied they are.

Providing good service to your customers should be your end goal. Failing to measure, monitor, and act on customer feedback means you don’t have the whole picture of how your service desk is performing and whether or where improvements are needed to maximize satisfaction.

There is a shift in ITSM to focus more on customer experience metrics over traditional ones

The Service Desk Institute (SDI) suggests that customer satisfaction is the most important indicator of service desk success, and that traditional metrics around SLA targets – currently the most common way to measure service desk performance – may become less valuable or even obsolete in the future as customer experience-focused targets become more popular. (Service Desk Institute, 2021)

SDI conducted a Customer Experience survey of service desk professionals from a range of organizations, both public and private, from January to March 2018. The majority of respondents said that customer experience is more important than other metrics such as speed of service or adherence to SLAs, and that customer satisfaction is more valuable than traditional metrics. (SDI, 2018).

However, many service desk leaders aren’t effectively measuring customer feedback

Not only is it important to measure customer experience and satisfaction levels, but it’s equally important to act on that data and feed it into a service improvement program. However, many IT leaders are neglecting either one or both of those components.

A strong customer feedback program brings many benefits to IT and the business

Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

Info-Tech’s methodology for measuring and acting on service desk customer feedback

Insight Summary

Key Insight:

Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before if they’re asked for their opinion then see nothing done with it. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

Additional insights:

Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

Phase 1

Understand the main types of customer satisfaction surveys, principles for survey design, and best practices for surveying your users.

Three methods of surveying your customers

Pros and cons of the three methods

Which survey method should you choose?

Only relying on one type of survey will leave gaps in your understanding of customer satisfaction. Include both transactional and relationship surveys to provide a holistic picture of customer satisfaction with the service desk.

If you can only start with one type, choose the type that best aligns with your goals and priorities:

Info-Tech Insight

One-off surveys can be useful to assess whether a specific change has impacted satisfaction, or to inform a planned change/initiative. However, as they aren’t typically part of an on-going customer feedback program, the focus of this research will be on transactional and relationship surveys.

3 common customer satisfaction measures

The three most utilized measures of customer satisfaction include CSAT, CES, and NPS.

When to use each satisfaction measure

How to choose which measure(s) to incorporate in your surveys

The best measures are the ones that align with your specific goals for collecting feedback.

• Most companies will use multiple satisfaction measures. For example, NPS can be tracked to monitor the overall customer sentiment, and CSAT used for more targeted feedback.
• For internal-facing IT departments, CSAT is the most popular of the three methods, and NPS may not be as useful.
• Choose your measure and survey types based on what you are trying to achieve and what kind of information you need to make improvements.
• Remember that one measure alone isn’t going to give you actionable feedback; you’ll need to follow up with additional measures (especially for NPS and CES).
• For CSAT surveys, customize the satisfaction measures in as many ways as you need to target the questions toward the areas you’re most interested in.
• Don’t stick to just these three measures or types of surveys – there are other ways to collect feedback. Experiment to find what works for you.
• If you’re designing your own survey, keep in mind the principles on the next slide.

Info-Tech Insight

While we focus mainly on traditional survey-based approaches to measuring customer satisfaction in this blueprint, there’s no need to limit yourselves to surveys as your only method. Consider multiple techniques to capture a wider audience, including:

• Customer journey mapping
• Focus groups with stakeholders
• Lunch and learns or workshop sessions
• Interviews – phone, chat, in-person
• Kiosks

Principles for survey design

As you design your satisfaction survey – whether transactional or relational – follow these guidelines to ensure the survey delivers value and gets responses.

1. Focus on your goal

Don’t include unnecessary questions that won’t give you actionable information; it will only waste respondents’ time.

2. Be brief

Keep each question as short as possible and limit the total number of survey questions to avoid survey fatigue.

3. Include open-ended questions

Most of your measures will be close-ended, but include at least one comment box to allow for qualitative feedback.

4. Keep questions clear and concise

Ensure that question wording is clear and specific so that all respondents interpret it the same way.

5. Avoid biased or leading questions

You won’t get accurate results if your question leads respondents into thinking or answering a certain way.

6. Avoid double-barreled questions

Don’t ask about two different things in the same question – it will confuse respondents and make your data hard to interpret.

7. Don’t restrict responses

Response options should include all possible opinions (including “don’t know”) to avoid frustrating respondents.

8. Make the survey easy to complete

Pre-populate information where possible (e.g. name, department) and ensure the survey is responsive on mobile devices.

9. Keep questions optional

If every question is mandatory, respondents may leave the survey altogether if they can’t or don’t want to answer one question.

10. Test your survey

Test your survey with your target audience before launching, and incorporate feedback - they may catch issues you didn’t notice.

Prevent survey fatigue to increase response rates

If it takes too much time or effort to complete your survey – whether transactional or relational – your respondents won’t bother. Balance your need to collect relevant data with users’ needs for a simple and worthwhile task in order to get the most value out of your surveys.

There are two types of survey fatigue:

1. Survey response fatigue

Occurs when users are overwhelmed by too many requests for feedback and stop responding.

2. Survey taking fatigue

Occurs when the survey is too long or irrelevant to users, so they grow tired and abandon the survey.

Fight survey fatigue:

• Make it as easy as possible to answer your survey:
  • Keep the survey as short as possible.
  • For transactional surveys, allow respondents to answer directly from email without having to click a separate link if possible.
  • Don’t make all questions mandatory or users may abandon it if they get to a difficult or unapplicable question.
  • Test the survey experience across devices for mobile users.
• Communicate the survey’s value so users will be more likely to donate their time.
• Act on feedback: follow up on both positive and negative responses so users see the value in responding.
• Consider attaching an incentive to responding (e.g. name entered in a monthly draw).

Design and implement transactional surveys

Phase 2

Learn why and how to design a simple survey to assess satisfaction with individual service desk transactions (tickets) and a methodology for survey delivery that will improve response rates.

Use transactional surveys to collect immediate and actionable feedback

Recall the definition of a transactional survey:

• Survey that is tied to a specific customer interaction with the service desk (i.e. a ticket).
• Assesses how satisfied customers are with how the ticket was handled and resolved.
• Sent immediately after ticket is closed.
• Short – usually 1 to 3 questions.

Info-Tech Insight

While feedback on transactional surveys is specific to a single transaction, even one negative experience can impact the overall perception of the service desk. Pair your transactional surveys with an annual relationship survey to capture broader sentiment toward the service desk.

Transactional surveys serve several purposes:

• Gives end users a mechanism to provide feedback when they want to.
• Provides continual insight into customer satisfaction throughout the year to monitor for trends or issues in between broader surveys.
• Provides IT leaders with actionable insights into areas for improvement in their processes, knowledge and skills, or customer service.
• Gives the service desk the opportunity to address any negative experiences or perceptions with customers, to repair the relationship.
• Feeds into individual or team coaching for service desk staff.

Make key decisions ahead of launching your transactional surveys

If you want to get the most of your surveys, you need to do more than just click a button to enable out-of-the-box surveys through your ITSM tool. Make these decisions ahead of time:

Key decisions, continued

Define the goals of your transactional survey program

Every survey should have a goal in mind to ensure only relevant and useful data is collected.

• Your survey program must be backed by clear and actionable goals that will inform all decisions about the survey.
• Survey questions should be structured around that goal, with every question serving a distinct purpose.
• If you don’t have a clear plan for how you will action the data from a particular question, exclude it.
• Don’t run a survey just for the sake of it; wait until you have a clear plan. If customers respond and then see nothing is done with the data, they will learn to avoid your surveys.

Your survey objectives will also determine how often to send the survey:

Info-Tech Insight

Service Managers often get caught up in running a transactional survey program because they think it’s standard practice, or they need to report a satisfaction metric. If that’s your only objective, you will fail to derive value from the data and will only turn customers away from responding.

Design survey content and length

As you design your survey, keep in mind the following principles:

1. Keep it short. Your customers won’t bother responding if they see a survey with multiple questions or long questions that require a lot of reading, effort, or time.
2. Make it simple. This not only makes it easier for your customers to complete, but easier for you to track and monitor.
3. Tie your survey to your goals. Remember that every question should have a clear and actionable purpose.
4. Don’t measure anything you can’t control. If you won’t be able to make changes based on the feedback, there’s no value asking about it.
5. Include an (optional) open-ended question. This will allow customers to provide more detailed feedback or suggestions.

Q: How many questions should the survey contain?

A: Ideally, your survey will have only one mandatory question that captures overall satisfaction with the interaction.

This question can be followed up with an optional open-ended question prompting the respondent for more details. This will provide a lot more context to the overall rating.

If there are additional questions you need to ask based on your goals, clearly make these questions optional so they don’t deter respondents from completing the survey. For example, they can appear only after the respondent has submitted their overall satisfaction response (i.e. on a separate, thank you page).

Additional (optional) measures may include:

• Customer effort score (how easy or difficult was it to get your issue resolved?)
• Customer service skills of the service desk
• Technical skills/knowledge of the agents
• Speed or response or resolution

Design question wording

Tips for writing survey questions:

• Be clear and concise
• Keep questions as short as possible
• Cut out any unnecessary words or phrasing
• Avoid biasing, or leading respondents to select a certain answer
• Don’t attempt to measure multiple constructs in a single question.

Sample question wording:

How satisfied are you with this support experience?

How would you rate your support experience?

Please rate your overall satisfaction with the way your issue was handled.

Choose response options

Once you’ve written your survey question, you need to design the response options for the question. Put careful thought into balancing ease of responding for the user with what will give you the actionable data you need to meet your goals. Keep the following in mind:

Decide how often to send surveys

There are two common choices for when to send ticket satisfaction surveys:

SDI’s 2018 Customer Experience in ITSM survey of service desk professionals found:

Almost two-thirds (65%) send surveys after every ticket.

One-third (33%) send surveys after randomly selected tickets are closed.

Info-Tech Recommendation:

Send a survey after every ticket so that anyone who has feedback gets the opportunity to provide it – and you always get the chance to act on negative feedback. But, limit how often any one customer receives a ticket to avoid over-surveying them – restrict to anywhere between one survey a week to one per month per customer.

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Response rates for transactional surveys are typically low…

Most IT organizations see transactional survey response rates of less than 20%.

… but there are steps you can take to maximize your response rate

It is still difficult to achieve high response rates to transactional surveys, but you can at least increase your response rate with these strategies:

1. Reduce frequency

Don’t over-survey any one user or they will start to ignore the surveys.

2. Send immediately

Ask for feedback soon after the ticket was resolved so it’s fresh in the user’s memory.

3. Make it short and simple

Keep the survey short, concise, and simple to respond to.

4. Make it easy to complete

Minimize effort involved as much as possible. Allow users to respond directly from email and from any device.

5. Change email messaging

Experiment with your subject line or email messaging to draw more attention.

6. Respond to feedback

Respond to customers who provide feedback – especially negative – so they know you’re listening.

7. Act on feedback

Demonstrate that you are acting on feedback so users see the value in responding.

Use Info-Tech’s survey template as a starting point

Once you’ve worked through all the decisions in this step, you’re ready to configure your transactional survey in your ITSM solution or survey tool.

As a starting point, you can leverage Info-Tech’s Transactional Service Desk Survey Templatee to design your templates and wording.

Make adjustments to match your decisions or your configuration limitations as needed.

Refer to the key decisions tables on slides 24 and 25 to ensure you’ve made all the configurations necessary as you set up your survey.

Design and implement relationship surveys

Phase 3

Understand why and how to design a survey to assess overall satisfaction with the service desk across your organization, or use Info-Tech’s diagnostic.

How can we evaluate overall Service Desk service quality?

Evaluating service quality in any industry is challenging for both those seeking feedback and those consuming the service: “service quality is more difficult for the consumer to evaluate than goods quality.”

You are in the position of trying to measure something intangible: customer perception, which “result[s] from a comparison of consumer expectations with actual service performance,” which includes both the service outcome and also “the process of service delivery”

(Source: Parasuraman et al, 1985, 42).

Your mission is to design a relationship survey that is:

• Comprehensive but not too long.
• Easy to understand but complex enough to capture enough detail.
• Able to capture satisfaction with both the outcome and the experience of receiving the service.

Use relationship surveys to measure overall service desk service quality

Recall the definition of a relationship survey:

• Survey that is sent periodically (i.e. semi-annually or annually) to the entire customer base to measure the overall relationship with the service desk.
• Shows you where your customer experience is doing well and where it needs improving.
• Asks customers to rate you based on their overall experience rather than on a specific product or interaction.
• Longer and more comprehensive than transactional surveys, covering multiple dimensions/ topics.

Relationship surveys serve several purposes:

• Gives end users an opportunity to provide overall feedback on a wider range of experiences with IT.
• Gives IT the opportunity to respond to feedback and show users their voices are heard.
• Provides insight into year-over-year trends and customer satisfaction.
• Provides IT leaders the opportunity to segment the results by demographic (e.g. by department, location, or seniority) and target improvements where needed most.
• Feeds into strategic planning and annual reports on user experience and satisfaction

Info-Tech Insight

Annual relationship surveys provide great value in the form of year-over-year internal benchmarking data, which you can use to track improvements and validate the impact of your service improvement efforts.

Understand the gaps that decrease service quality

The Service Quality Model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) shows how perceived service quality is negatively impacted by the gap between expectations for quality service and the perceptions of actual service delivery: Gap 1: Consumer expectation – Management perception gap: Are there differences between your assumptions about what users want from a service and what those users expect? Gap 2: Management perception – Service quality specification gap: Do you have challenges translating user expectations for service into standardized processes and guidelines that can meet those expectations? Gap 3: Service quality specifications – Service delivery gap: Do staff members struggle to carry out the service quality processes when delivering service? Gap 4: Service delivery – External communications gap: Have users been led to expect more than you can deliver? Alternatively, are users unaware of how the organization ensures quality service, and therefore unable to appreciate the quality of service they receive? Gap 5: Expected service – Perceived service gap: Is there a discrepancy between users’ expectations and their perception of the service they received (regardless of any user misunderstanding)?

Your survey questions about service and support should provide insight into where these gaps exist in your organization

Make key decisions ahead of launch

Align the relationship survey with your goals

What is motivating you to launch the survey at this time?

Is there a renewed focus on customer service satisfaction? If so, this survey will track the initiative’s success, so its questions must align with the sponsors’ expectations.

Are you surveying customer satisfaction in order to comply with legislation, or directives to measure customer service quality?

What objectives/outcomes will this survey feed into?

What do you need to report on to your stakeholders? Have they communicated any expectations regarding the data they expect to see?

Does the CIO want the annual survey to measure end-user satisfaction with all of IT?

• Or do you only want to measure satisfaction with one set of processes (e.g. Service Desk)?
• Are you seeking feedback on a project (e.g. implementation of new ERP)?
• Are you seeking feedback on the application portfolio?

In 1993 the U.S. president issued an Executive Order requiring executive agencies to “survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services” and “post service standards and measure results against them.” (Clinton, 1993)

Identify what you’re measuring

Info-Tech Insight

As you compose survey questions, decide whether they are intended to capture user satisfaction or effort: this will influence how the question is worded. Include a mix of both.

Determine a framework for your survey

If your relationship survey covers satisfaction with service support, ensure the questions cover the major aspects of service quality. You may wish to align your questions on support with existing frameworks: for example, the SERVQUAL service quality measurement instrument identifies 5 dimensions of service quality: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy, and Responsiveness (see below). As you design the survey, consider if the questions relate to these five dimensions. If you have overlooked any of the dimensions, consider if you need to revise or add questions.

1-5. Arlen, Chris,2022. Paraphrasing Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry, 1990.

Cover logistical details of the survey

Use the Sample Size Calculator to determine your ideal sample size

Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Diagnostics

If you choose to leverage a third-party partner, an Info-Tech satisfaction survey may already be part of your membership. There are two options, depending on your needs:

Design question wording

Choose answer scales that best fit your questions and reporting needs

Likert scale

Respondents select from a range of statements the position with which they most agree:

E.g. How satisfied are you with how long it generally takes to resolve your issue completely?

E.g. Very dissatisfied/Somewhat dissatisfied/ Neutral/ Somewhat satisfied/ Very satisfied/ NA

Frequency scale

How often does the respondent have to do something, or how often do they encounter something?

E.g. How frequently do you need to re-open tickets that have been closed without being satisfactorily resolved?

E.g. Never/ Rarely/ Sometimes/ Often/ Always/ NA

Numeric scale

By asking users to rate their satisfaction on a numeric scale (e.g., 1-5, 1-10), you can facilitate reporting on averages:

E.g. How satisfied are you with IS’s ability to provide services to allow the organization to meet its goals?

E.g. 1 – Not at all Satisfied to 10 – Fully Satisfied / NA

Forced ranking

Learn more about your users’ priorities by asking them to rank answers from most to least important, or selecting their top choices (Sauro, 2018):

E.g. From the following list, drag and drop the 3 aspects of our service that are most important to you into the box on the right.

Info-Tech Insight

Always include an optional open-ended question, which allows customers to provide more feedback or suggestions.

Test the survey before launching

Review your questions for repetition and ask for feedback on your survey draft to discover if readers interpret the questions differently than you intended.

Test the survey with different stakeholder groups:

• IT staff: To discover overlooked topics.
• Representatives of your end-user population: To discover whether they understand the intention of the questions.
• Executives: To validate whether you are capturing the data they are interested in reporting on.

Testing methodology:

• Ask your test subjects to take the survey in your presence so you can monitor their experience as they take it.
• Ask them to narrate their experience as they take the survey.
• Watch for:
  • The time it takes to complete the survey.
  • Moments when they struggle or are uncertain with the survey’s wording.
  • Questions they find repetitive or pointless.

Info-Tech Insight

In the survey testing phase, try to capture at least a few real-time responses to the survey. If you collect survey feedback only once the test is over, you may miss some key insights into the user experience of navigating the survey.

“Follow the golden rule: think of your audience and what they may or may not know. Think about what kinds of outside pressures they may bring to the work you’re giving them. What time constraints do they have?”

– Sally Colwell, Project Officer, Government of Canada Pension Centre

Monitor and maximize your response rate

Ensure success by staying on top of the survey during the period it is open.

• When will your users complete the survey? You know your own organization’s culture best, but SurveyMonkey found that weekday survey responses peaked at mid-morning and mid-afternoon (Wronski). Ensure you send the communication at a time it will not be overlooked. For example, some studies found Mondays to have higher response rates; however, the data is not consistent (Amaresan, 2021). Send the survey at a time you believe your users are least likely to be inundated with other notifications.
• Have a trusted leader send out the first communication informing the end-user base of the survey. Ensure the recipient understands your motivation and how their responses will be used to benefit them (O’Reardon, 2016). Remind them that participating in the survey benefits them: since IT is taking actions based on their feedback, it’s their chance to improve their employee experience of the IT services and tools they use to do their job.
• In the introductory communication, test different email subject lines and email body content to learn which versions increase respondents’ rates of opening the survey link, and “keep it short and clear” (O’Reardon, 2016).
• If your users tend to mistrust emailed links due to security training, tell them how to confirm the legitimacy of the survey.

“[Send] one reminder to those who haven’t completed the survey after a few days. Don’t use the word ‘reminder’ because that’ll go straight in the bin, better to say something like, ‘Another chance to provide your feedback’”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Analyze and act on feedback

Phase 4

Measure and analyze the results of both surveys and build a plan to act on both positive and negative feedback and communicate the results with the organization.

Leverage the service recovery paradox to improve customer satisfaction

A service failure or a poor experience isn’t what determines customer satisfaction – it’s how you respond to the issue and take steps to fix it that really matters.

This means one poor experience with the service desk doesn’t necessarily lead to an unhappy user; if you quickly and effectively respond to negative feedback to repair the relationship, the customer may be even happier afterwards because you demonstrated that you value them.

“Every complaint becomes an opportunity to turn a bad IT customer experience into a great one.”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Collecting feedback is only the first step in the customer feedback loop

Closing the feedback loop is one of the most important yet forgotten steps in the process.

1. Collect Feedback

• Send transactional surveys after every ticket is resolved.
• Send a broader annual relationship survey to all users.

• Calculate satisfaction scores.
• Read open-ended comments.
• Analyze for trends, categories, common issues and priorities.

• Respond to users who provided feedback.
• Make improvements based on feedback.

• Communicate feedback results and improvements made to respondents and to service desk staff.
• Summarize results and actions to key stakeholders and business leaders.

Act on feedback to get the true value of your satisfaction program

SDI (2018) survey data shows that the majority of service desk professionals are using their customer satisfaction data to feed into service improvements. However, 30% still aren’t doing anything with the feedback they collect. Collecting feedback is only one half of a good customer feedback program. Acting on that feedback is critical to the success of the program. Using feedback to make improvements not only benefits the service desk but shows users the value of responding and will increase future response rates.

“Your IT service desk’s CSAT survey should be the means of improving your service (and the employee experience), and something that encourages people to provide even more feedback, not just the means for understanding how well it’s doing” – Joe the IT Guy, SysAid

Assign responsibility for acting on feedback

If collecting and analyzing customer feedback is something that happens off the side of your desk, it either won’t get done or won’t get done well.

• Formalize the customer satisfaction program. It’s not a one-time task, but an ongoing initiative that requires significant time and dedication.
• Be clear on who is accountable for the program and who is responsible for all the tasks involved for both transactional and relationship survey data collection, analysis, and communication.

Assign accountability for the customer feedback program to one person (i.e. Service Desk Manager, Service Manager, Infrastructure & Operations Lead, IT Director), who may take on or assign responsibilities such as:

• Designing surveys, including survey questions and response options.
• Configuring survey(s) in ITSM or survey tool.
• Sending relationship surveys and subsequent reminders to the organization.
• Communicating results of both surveys to internal staff, business leaders, and end users.
• Analyzing results.
• Feeding results into improvement plans, coaching, and training.
• Creating reports and dashboards to monitor scores and trends.

Info-Tech Insight

While feedback can feed into internal coaching and training, the goal should never be to place blame or use metrics to punish agents with poor results. The focus should always be on improving the experience for end users.

Determine how and how often to analyze feedback data

• Analyze and report scores from both transactional and relationship surveys to get a more holistic picture of satisfaction across the organization.
• Determine how you will calculate and present satisfaction ratings/scores, both overall and for individual questions. See tips on the right for calculating and presenting NPS and CSAT scores.
• A single satisfaction score doesn’t tell the full story; calculate satisfaction scores at multiple levels to determine where improvements are most needed.
  • For example, satisfaction by service desk tier, team or location, by business department or location, by customer group, etc.
• Analyze survey data regularly to ensure you communicate and act on feedback promptly and avoid further alienating dissatisfied users. Transactional survey feedback should be reviewed at least weekly, but ideally in real time, as resources allow.

Calculating NPS Scores

Categorize respondents into 3 groups:

• 9-10 = Promoters, 7-8 = Neutral, 1-6 = Detractors

Calculate overall NPS score:

• % Promoters - % Detractors

Calculating CSAT Scores

• CSAT is usually presented as a percentage representing the average score.
• To calculate, take the total of all scores, divide by the maximum possible score, then multiply by 100. For example, a satisfaction rating of 80% means on average, users gave a rating of 4/5 or 8/10.
• Note that some organizations present CSAT as the percentage of “satisfied” users, with satisfied being defined as either “yes” on a two-point scale or a score of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale. Be clear how you are defining your satisfaction rating.

Don’t neglect qualitative feedback

While it may be more difficult and time-consuming to analyze, the reward is also greater in terms of value derived from the data.

Define a process to respond to both negative and positive feedback

Successful customer satisfaction programs respond effectively to both positive and negative outcomes. Late or lack of responses to negative comments may increase customer frustration, while not responding at all to the positive comments may give the perception of indifference.

1. Define what qualifies as a positive vs negative score

E.g. Scores of 1 to 2 out of 5 are negative, scores of 4 to 5 out of 5 are positive.

2. Define process to respond to negative feedback

• Negative responses should go directly to the Service Desk Manager or whoever is accountable for feedback.
• Set an SLO for when the user will be contacted. It should be within 24h but ideally much sooner.
• Investigate the issue to understand exactly what happened and get to the root cause.
• Identify remediation steps to ensure the issue does not occur again.
• Communicate to the customer the action you have taken to improve.

• Positive responses should also be reviewed by the person accountable for feedback, but the timeline to respond may be longer.
• Show respondents that you value their time by thanking them for responding. Showing appreciate helps to build a long-term relationship with the user.
• Share positive results with the team to improve morale, and as a coaching/training mechanism.
• Consider how to use positive feedback as an incentive or reward.

Build a plan to communicate results to various stakeholders

Regular communication about your feedback results and action plan tied to those results is critical to the success of your feedback program. Build your communication plan around these questions:

Communication to your users impacts both response rates and satisfaction

Based on the Customer Communication Cycle by David O’Reardon, 2018

Ask users to provide feedback through transactional and relationship surveys. Thank them for completing the survey – show that you value their time, regardless of the type of feedback they submitted. Be transparent and summarize the results of the survey(s). Make it easy to digest with simple satisfaction scores and a summary of the main insights or priorities revealed. Before asking for feedback, explain how you will use feedback to improve the service. After collecting feedback, share your plan for making improvements based on what the data told you. After you’ve made changes, communicate again to share the results with respondents. Make it clear that their feedback had a direct result on the service they receive. Communicating this before running another survey will also increase the likelihood of respondents providing feedback again.

Info-Tech Insight

Focus your communications to users around them, not you. Demonstrate that you need feedback to improve their experience, not just for you to collect data.

Translate feedback into actionable improvements

Taking action on feedback is arguably the most important step of the whole customer feedback program.

“Without converting feedback into actions, surveys can become just a pointless exercise in number watching.”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Info-Tech Insight

Outline exactly what you plan to do to address customer feedback in an action plan, and regularly review that action plan to select and prioritize initiatives and monitor progress.

For more guidance on tracking and prioritizing ongoing improvement initiatives, see the blueprints Optimize the Service Desk with a Shift Left Strategy and Build a Continual Improvement Plan for the Service Desk.