There used to be a time when companies had just a couple of technology vendors that they dealt with. One for phones and one for computers and software. But today, with the rise of cloud technology and IT being infused throughout business operations, companies have multiple vendor relationships.
The average small business in Charlotte and around the country has between 40-79 different SaaS applications used for different business processes. Those vendors, along with vendors for internet, IoT devices, and more, add up to a big infrastructure of relationships to handle.
When vendor relationships aren’t centrally managed and maintained, you can have problems getting service and support when you need it. You might also end up wasting money on unnecessary purchases.
What is Vendor Management?
Vendor management is a service provided by IT providers, like Rocky Knoll Technologies. It takes the burden of handling all those relationships off your shoulders, improving third-party responsiveness and your team’s productivity.
When you offload vendor management to an IT professional, we handle all aspects of your hardware, software, and service vendor relationships, including:
- Keeping up with warranties
- Troubleshooting any issues or needs
- Following up to ensure responsiveness
- Developing great relationships on your behalf with vendors
- Vendor research and sourcing
- Reporting on vendor performance
- Compliance and security monitoring
- Assistance resolving vendor disputes
Benefits of Using Vendor Management at Your Charlotte Area Business
Vendors Have a Single Point of Contact
Say you have one employee that calls your internet vendor asking about upgrading your bandwidth package. The vendor puts things in motion for the upgrade, and when they call back with a quote, a different staff member answers. Unaware of the prior request, they tell them “no thanks,” thinking it’s an unsolicited sales call.
This type of miscommunication can happen when you don’t have a single point of contact for your technology vendors.
This problem is eliminated with vendor management because each vendor has one point of contact when it comes to your technology services, and all conversations and work-in-progress is well documented to avoid confusion.
Improved Responsiveness & Efficiency
Most companies don’t have the time to effectively manage their vendors or stay on top of them, thus vendors may forget about a request that’s not followed up on or put it on the back burner.
We’ll stay on top of vendors to ensure they’re responsive to your needs, so you’re getting the efficiency and responsiveness from your vendor relationships that you deserve.
Reduced Security & Compliance Risk
If your business must comply with data privacy regulations like HIPAA, having a vendor that doesn’t follow proper data security protocols can leave you at risk.
Cybersecurity needs to extend to any providers you’re using that may be responsible for cloud data storage, payment processing, or any type of data handling or network connections. If you don’t have the time yourself to stay on top of vendor compliance you can suffer a breach and/or high costs for incident mitigation.
When vendors are managed professionally, part of that service includes ensuring that vendors have the right safeguards and compliance standards in place that match your business requirements.
Faster Problem Resolution
When part of your IT infrastructure goes down, you might not immediately know which vendor to call. Your employees can be run in circles calling vendors only to hear that the problem “isn’t on our side.”
When you work with an IT professional for vendor management, our familiarity and expertise with technology helps us immediately identify which system, and thus which vendor, is the issue. This eliminates the run around and gets you faster problem resolution.
Improves Team Productivity
Staying on hold for manufacturer support for 30-40 minutes, eats into your staff productivity. With so many different technology vendors to interface with, one IT problem can mean hours of lost productivity for your team just to get something simple fixed.
When you use vendor management services, your team won’t be stuck on the phone on hold waiting on support. We’ll handle all the vendor interfacing for you, so you get a fast solution that doesn’t mean hours of lost time.
Cost Savings
Not all vendors are going to give you the right product or service package for your needs. Some will sell you more than you need because it’s better for them.
We can save you money through vendor management by ensuring you’re getting the best deals and aren’t being sold services or products you don’t need. We’ll also continually work to get you the most competitive pricing possible for a service from a reliable vendor.
Learn More About Time-Saving Vendor Management Services
Are you tired of running around after vendors or waiting on hold for support? Rocky Knoll Technologies can take vendor management off your shoulders and foster healthy and productive vendor relationships.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Call 704.594.7292 or reach us online.
