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The Goal of Vendor Management Should go Far Beyond Just Managing Costs
There is a risk that vendor management may be viewed as an extension or replacement for purchasing or procurement, if viewed only through the narrow lens of cost reduction.
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Now in Vendor Insights

February 2012

The Goal of Vendor Management Should go Far Beyond Just Managing Costs: Vendor management is more than getting a better price; it's about getting more value. Vendor management may be viewed as an extension or replacement for purchasing or procurement if viewed only through the narrow lens of cost reduction.

January 2012

Making Microsoft SharePoint Deliver: Many enterprises are considering significant SharePoint investments. Learn what SharePoint is, and how it is affecting the portal, content and collaboration markets, as well as the strategic role SharePoint plays in enterprises as information infrastructure.

Key Steps in Preparing for Your Microsoft License Negotiation: The best Microsoft deals go to those customers that have invested the time and effort in careful preparation. Follow these guidelines before going into negotiations with Microsoft or your reseller, to maximize the value of your contract.

Google and Apple: Disrupting Microsoft and Others: Google, Microsoft and Apple are investing billions of dollars every year, building out data centers to support their cloud offerings, and hoping to be No. 1 in a world where the cloud is central to computing. We focus on the differences between their strategies, and who is likely to succeed most at what.

December 2011

Predicts 2012: CSPs Need to Redefine Their Business Scope and Focus on Operational Efficiency: CSPs have to redefine their business scope due to competitive pressures. Many will attempt to expand into adjacent industries and create value beyond network connectivity and access. We highlight the key strategic areas that will impact CSPs' future business performance.

Eight Ways to Prepare IT Organizations for Sudden Vendor Shifts: Sudden shifts in vendor strategies can be unpredictable, yet users can convert the situation to a positive negotiating position. This research explains how.

November 2011

Google and Apple: Disrupting Microsoft and Others: Google and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars every year, building out data centers to support their cloud offerings, and hoping to be No. 1 in a world where the cloud is central to computing. Where do Microsoft, Google and Apple stand today?

October 2011

Negotiating with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle & SAP: Tips for Success: Understanding leverage points that can be used in negotiations.

Google and Apple: Disrupting Microsoft and Others: How will enterprise IT decisions be affected by the battles between Microsoft, Google and Apple?

Six Ways to Avoid Escalating Costs During the Life of a Cloud Contract: Procurement and sourcing professionals must negotiate the protection required for sustainable deals with predictable costs.

September 2011

IT Procurement Best Practice: Nine Contractual Terms to Reduce Risk in Cloud Contracts: Buyer interest in cloud solutions is increasing, however the cloud contracting model is still not standardized, with many risk elements that are unacceptable to enterprise buyers.

Negotiating with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle & SAP: Tips for Success: Discover potentially huge savings if contracts are negotiated well; but substantial downside costs for those who fail to proactively manage the negotiations.

Best Practice: How to Determine the Effectiveness of a Service Provider's Global Delivery Model: 10 key criteria to evaluating service provider's quality and likelihood of success.

Assessing and Revising Vendor Management Programs Key to Driving Value: Gartner's three predictions for the future of vendor management will affect how organizations buy and manage IT products and services.

August 2011

The Goal of Vendor Management Should Go Far Beyond Just Managing Costs: Vendor management is more than getting a better price; it's about getting more value.

Project & Portfolio Management: Strategies for Vendor Selection: The 2011 Gartner PPM market analysis represents a "big bang" expansion in how we analyze the overall PPM market.

Evaluating Cloud Providers: New World of Vendor Management: As IT organizations host more applications in the cloud, it is imperative that they understand the capabilities of their cloud service provider (CSP) for determining an application's fit in the cloud service, and at the same time mitigate cloud risks.

Cloud Computing: The Changing Vendor Landscape: Enterprises must balance new vendors with the gradual acceptance of new technologies by established vendors.

Best Practices to Drive the Early Engagement of IT Procurement: Chief procurement officers (CPO), CEOs, CIOs and CFOs can use the best practices in this research to create a culture of true collaboration to make the most of IT procurement expertise transparently and consistently.

July 2011

Future Security Trends: Top Solutions and Leading Vendors: Existing models for information security are at a breaking point.

Manage Currency Risk in IT Vendor Contracts: Contract negotiators should seek the most equitable way of sharing currency risks that remains cost-effective to administer.

The Guide to Sourcing Strategy 2011 and Why You Need It: The economy, your competitors and your CxOs are creating a long list of reasons for you to evolve your sourcing strategy to enter the next decade.

Successfully Negotiating with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle & SAP: For many clients these vendors represent substantial investment requirements and potentially huge savings if contracts are negotiated well.

June 2011

Cool Vendors in Cloud Security Services, 2011: Cloud computing is unquestionably one of the most important trends in IT today, and many technology providers — both established and new — are looking to the cloud to deliver more-effective security practices.

IT Outsourcing Trends: Tips to Shape Your Strategy: The outsourcing market is undergoing accelerated change as factors such as cloud computing and offshoring become more mainstream. This presentation examines what you can expect to see in the future as new offerings, pricing models and vendors take the stage.

Four Risky Issues When Contracting for Cloud Services: It is critical that organizations that consider cloud services as part of their sourcing mix analyze these risks, and implement and execute risk mitigation plans.

Data Center Sourcing: Cloud, Host, Co-lo, or Internal?: The decision to outsource or in-source data center services is not a simple matter.

May 2011

Microsoft Licensing: Yes You Can Negotiate: Learn what the critical success factors are to structure a good deal with Microsoft.

The Comprehensive Guide to Effective Vendor Management: You are more dependent on external vendors, your external spend is increasing and you now have greater risk using vendors than ever before. Sound familiar?

Emerging Vendor Risk Management Solutions: Vendor risk management (VRM) solutions are emerging to enable the assessment and management of risks from third-party service providers and IT suppliers.

How Cloud Sourcing Is Changing the IT Services Market: The $820 billion IT services market is changing quickly and dramatically. We'll examine the likely future direction of the market, and provide recommendations to IT service buyers.

Key Issues for Procurement and Sourcing Technology: The procurement and sourcing technology market is in its "teenage" years: It looks mature from the outside, but it is still evolving significantly.

April 2011

Cloud Liability, Terms and Conditions, Legal Issues: Responsibility for service levels becomes an issue to be negotiated and jointly managed by the customer and the provider. Drue Reeves explores what to look for and what to avoid.

Single-Vendor ITOM Suite or Multivendor Point Products: There are key considerations companies should make choosing between single-vendor IT operations management (ITOM) product suites and point products from multiple ITOM vendors.

Leverage Google, Microsoft and IBM for Cloud E-Mail Deliverys: Many organizations perceive e-mail as a commodity that a number of other companies have already moved to a cloud platform. It is not that simple.

Introducing Gartner's Vendor Management Framework: Improve control, reduce risk and drive more value from your vendors. Define organizational models, develop the vendor management processes and improve the value that vendors deliver to your enterprise.

March 2011

IT Outsourcing Trends: Tips to Shape Your Strategy: The outsourcing market is undergoing accelerated change as factors such as cloud computing and offshoring become more mainstream. This presentation examines what you can expect to see in the future as new offerings, pricing models and vendors take the stage.

Top 10 Extreme Negotiation Tactics for Problematic Vendors: Some vendors simply will not assist customers in lowering IT costs, forcing customers to adopt equally aggressive negotiating stances.

Making Cloud Rights and Responsibilities a Reality: Respecting consumers' rights and responsibilities will require effort and expense from providers, but securing them will encourage enterprises to put more of their business into the cloud.

Contracting for Innovation in Outsourcing: Are You Prepared?: Outsourcing deals rarely achieve expected innovation, leaving organizations and their providers dissatisfied with the results of attempted innovation activities. Understand how to prepare for and successfully unlock the innovation process.

February 2011

Safe SaaS: Contractual Protections for a Lasting Vendor Relationship: Many organizations still see SaaS as a casual vendor relationship, a brief encounter without consequences, to which end users can sign up online. Reading the fine print of your contract and knowing what to negotiate can make all the difference.

Maximize the Value from Your Vendor Relationships: Better manage your deals, going beyond a traditional vendor management focus on contract terms and conditions and performance metrics, to areas such as collaboration and innovation to improve the overall value of the sourcing relationship.

Negotiating with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle & SAP: Tips for Success: Are you under pressure to reduce cost and optimize spend? This presentation addresses the challenges customers have when negotiating with large software vendors and will recommend negotiating strategies and vendor management tactics for each.

Google vs. Microsoft: The Battle for Future Dominance: Google and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars every year, building out data centers to support their cloud offerings. Join Leading Gartner Analysts as they discuss the differences between their strategies and who is likely to succeed most at what.

January 2011

Predicts 2011: What's in Store for Vendor Management?: By 2015, 25% of Fortune 500 companies will judge vendor management programs on their ability to optimize strategic IT vendors. Prepare for economic change, remain flexible and better manage the IT resources you buy from vendors.

Making Microsoft SharePoint Deliver: Many enterprises are considering significant SharePoint investments. Join leading Gartner analyst Mark Gilbert discusses the strategic role SharePoint plays and how to avoid the pitfalls to deliver clear benefits to the business.

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The Goal of Vendor Management Should go Far Beyond Just Managing Costs

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