Assessing Vendors

Introduction

It always irritates me when a book starts with a justification of its own existence, so it somewhat surprises me to be starting this book in this manner. However, we face many issues today that must be addressed. Vendor selection processes fail when an organization keeps a wrong vendor too long and fails to adapt to changing circumstances. These processes fail when a needed vendor is not selected because the selection process becomes bogged down in trivialities. They fail when mature organizations select immature vendors who are simply unable to provide what they promise.

Vendor management is something of a black art in the IT industry. Those who are most successful either don’t follow a process or keep their processes secret. Some ...