With the extent of outsourcing and software-as-a-service models, executives are focused on creating strong partnerships with their technology vendors more than ever before.
However, make sure you really need a partnership before investing in creating one.
True partnerships between the people of separate organizations require a lot of effort and dedication to create and maintain. This can create powerful results. You must make sure those results are worthy of the relationship investment, however.
How can you know? Here are a few criteria:
- The service or technology is a significant investment for your organization.
- The service or technology enables you to achieve highly valuable outcomes.
- You, as a customer, are of significant importance to the vendor. If you are a small fry client, you will typically get small fry attention.
- The technology or service is not a commodity, easily interchangeable with others.
If you and your vendor don’t fit the criteria above then you are both possibly wasting your time and effort on a partnership when one isn’t required.
Related Resource: Creating High Value Partnerships with Technology Providers
