IT Vendor Management FundamentalsEnglish
How to Manage external IT Service Providers ...
Details and more datesOur academy offers excellent training courses in the fields of outsourcing and vendor management:
Learn in our practice-oriented vendor management trainings how to design IT vendor management in a holistic way and how to operate it efficiently in day-to-day business. Take advantage of practical tips from our consulting experience to design your vendor management.
Develop knowledge on the design of outsourcing in order to be able to create the conditions for efficient IT vendor management.
Depending on your needs, you can choose seminars from the following training courses:
How to Manage external IT Service Providers ...
Details and more datesHow to Manage external IT Service Providers ...
Details and more datesOur academy offers are an educational service certified by TÜV Nord (ISO 29993).
And what’s in it for you?
“Due to the structured approach of amendos gmbh in our outsourcing project, many stumbling blocks could be eliminated in advance. At crucial points, such as the drafting of the contract, we benefited from the rich experience of amendos consultants from other outsourcing projects.”
“With amendos, the planning and transition of our IT outsourcing was highly professional and fully in line with our needs. amendos is definitely an expert in ITSM and IT outsourcing.”
“Due to the structured approach of amendos gmbh in our outsourcing project, many stumbling blocks could be eliminated in advance. At crucial points, such as the drafting of the contract, we benefited from the rich experience of amendos consultants from other outsourcing projects.”
“amendos gmbh helped us with their efficient methodology and a lot of experience to create an IT service catalog tailored to our environment. This and the competent consulting, created the foundation for a new service orientation.”
“amendos gmbh took over the project management of an international technical migration project. Starting with the creation of the project order and business case, to the project management and in the end project conclusion and lessons learned, the amendos consultants have always convinced through competence, resilience and quality and ensured the achievement of the project goals.”
Workshop participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“The trainer was very competent.”
Seminar participant “IT Vendor Management – Live in operation”:
“The transparency of this important issue became very clear (in this seminar).”
“My expectations have been exceeded – the practical examples and exercises have given me important ideas for discussions with my service providers.”
Workshop participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“I particularly liked the practical examples, a very competent trainer with lots of examples and a very quick grasp of the subject.”
Seminar participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“I particularly liked the integration of theory and practice.”
For reasons of confidentiality, we present below examples of projects that have been handled in a similar form by our consultants – for various clients.
A medium-sized service company has handed over the hardware service for its workplace PCs to an external service provider. It is now planning to outsource the entire workplace service. As part of this IT outsourcing project, an IT vendor management organization was set up so that the service provider could be appropriately monitored during the operating phase. The concept to be created will also be used as a basis for managing other service providers in the future.
We support the development of IT vendor management organization by taking on the following tasks, which we handle in close coordination with the internal units involved:
After adoption of the to-be concept we accompany the implementation of the IT vendor management concept.
IT V
A financial services company has outsourced some of its IT services to various providers. The IT vendor management was set up individually for each outsourcing project, i.e., there is no consistent handling within the company. Now, a comprehensive IT vendor management concept is to be created in order to increase the efficiency of vendor management and to increase the profitability of the external services. For this purpose, a maturity analysis of the existing vendor management is to be carried out as part of a preliminary study in order to obtain an overview of the initial situation.
We provide a maturity model based on ISO 15504 (SPICE) and perform a maturity analysis of the IT vendor management. In this context, we provide the following services in detail:
We prepare all results of the maturity analysis in a management presentation and present it to a management committee.
The IT organization of a company in the healthcare sector is planning to hand over the operation of its local data networks to an external provider. A tender process is to be used to select a service provider who will also take over the transition of the services.
In close coordination with representatives of the internal parties involved (IT department, internal IT customers, purchasing, legal department), we take on the following tasks within the framework of the outsourcing project set up for this purpose:
After the company has contracted a service provider, we take over the customer’s management of the transition phase, in which the provider prepares to take over the contracted services. We coordinate the work to be performed internally and manage the provider’s project services. In addition, we ensure appropriate quality assurance and acceptance of the services set up by the provider.
As part of a process optimization of the network service, our public customer plans to outsource partial services to an external service provider.
A concept for the reorganization of the network service developed by amendos during the planning phase forms the basis of the tender. This concept specifies which tasks are to be performed by the external service provider and how the cooperation with the external service provider will be structured in the future within the framework of IT vendor management.
We start by advising the client on the selection of the appropriate request for proposal procedure. The client decides on a public procurement procedure according to the German regulation “VGV”.
Afterwards, on the basis of our concept, we prepare tender documents that comply with procurement law and consist of the following elements:
After the contract has been announced and the request for proposal documents have been sent out, we provide support in the bidding phase by answering the bidders’ questions. Subsequently, the bids received are evaluated according to formal, technical and economic criteria. In coordination with the client, a documentation of the bid evaluation including the recommended next steps is prepared. On this basis, we accompany bidder discussions to clarify open points and subsequently supplement the bid evaluation with a recommendation for awarding the contract.
The IT organization of a medium-sized industrial company has set itself the goal of aligning its IT services more closely with business requirements. For this purpose, the current services are to be mapped in an IT service catalog for the first time in order to be able to strategically control further development of the service portfolio on this basis.
At the beginning we clarify the basic conditions of the current service provision. In particular, we identify which organizational units provide IT services, how the relationships between them are regulated, and how the coordination with internal customers takes place.
This is followed by an as-is analysis to record and analyze the services that are currently being provided but have not yet been documented in a proper way. For this purpose, we conduct interviews with the IT service providers and customer representatives. The goal is to obtain an overview of the content of the current services and their quality.
Based on this, the services are redesigned. For this purpose, we present a methodology to the stakeholders to be involved and coordinate it with them. The methodology contains a two-stage procedure which – in line with ITIL – enables the definition of technical services and derives business services from them.
Technical and business services are defined on this basis: the service content is compiled for each service and the service levels are defined. The services created are aligned with the customer’s current requirements. At all stages, we work closely with internal IT and business representatives to ensure that the services meet requirements and are economically viable.
The service definitions are documented in a suitable form so that they can be imported into the existing ITSM tool. In addition, this data is prepared in the form of a service catalog that is available to the target groups.
The IT department of a chemical company wants to simplify the access to its services for its IT users. For this purpose, a central service portal has been set up where all service requests can be initiated. In a follow-up project, various service request processes will now be optimized in order to further simplify and accelerate service requests.
We first clarify the basic conditions: the relevant process landscape including the adjacent processes as well as existing process standards and tools, process participants and process users. In addition, we ensure that the employees relevant for the success of the process optimization are involved in the project and attuned to the project task.
After that for each process the following steps are run through in workshops moderated by us (and prepared before and documented afterwards):
We document the to-be processes in accordance with the company’s existing specifications and process modeling standards using existing tools. We accompany all steps established in the company to coordinate and approve the designed target processes and plan and control their implementation. In addition to the technical implementation, this also includes the information and training of various stakeholder groups, the implementation of organizational measures, and the execution of a pilot phase.
As part of a project for an industrial company that operates in over 40 countries, the workplace PCs of around 2,000 employees worldwide are to be harmonized and equipped with the latest operating system and MS Office version (O365). Prior to this work, the existing PC application landscape must be consolidated and the ability of the applications to run on the new operating system must be ensured. In addition, a software distribution system is to be designed and implemented so that the PCs can be set up consistently and automatically worldwide in the future and operated as economically as possible. As part of the migration to the new operating system, obsolete PC hardware must be replaced.
An external service provider is to be contracted and managed for the design of the required standard client image and the software distribution system architecture. Another service provider is responsible for delivering and setting up the new client systems for all sites; this service provider is also to be managed during the global rollout.
The amendos project manager works in the project core team and actively supports the client’s project manager in the sense of a “dual leadership”. The project office is staffed by additional amendos consultants. In particular the following tasks are taken over:
“Due to the structured approach of amendos gmbh in our outsourcing project, many stumbling blocks could be eliminated in advance. At crucial points, such as the drafting of the contract, we benefited from the rich experience of amendos consultants from other outsourcing projects.”
“With amendos, the planning and transition of our IT outsourcing was highly professional and fully in line with our needs. amendos is definitely an expert in ITSM and IT outsourcing.”
“Due to the structured approach of amendos gmbh in our outsourcing project, many stumbling blocks could be eliminated in advance. At crucial points, such as the drafting of the contract, we benefited from the rich experience of amendos consultants from other outsourcing projects.”
“amendos gmbh helped us with their efficient methodology and a lot of experience to create an IT service catalog tailored to our environment. This and the competent consulting, created the foundation for a new service orientation.”
“amendos gmbh took over the project management of an international technical migration project. Starting with the creation of the project order and business case, to the project management and in the end project conclusion and lessons learned, the amendos consultants have always convinced through competence, resilience and quality and ensured the achievement of the project goals.”
Workshop participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“The trainer was very competent.”
Seminar participant “IT Vendor Management – Live in operation”:
“The transparency of this important issue became very clear (in this seminar).”
“My expectations have been exceeded – the practical examples and exercises have given me important ideas for discussions with my service providers.”
Workshop participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“I particularly liked the practical examples, a very competent trainer with lots of examples and a very quick grasp of the subject.”
Seminar participant “IT Vendor Management”:
“I particularly liked the integration of theory and practice.”
For reasons of confidentiality, we present below examples of projects that have been handled in a similar form by our consultants – for various clients.
A medium-sized service company has handed over the hardware service for its workplace PCs to an external service provider. It is now planning to outsource the entire workplace service. As part of this IT outsourcing project, an IT vendor management organization was set up so that the service provider could be appropriately monitored during the operating phase. The concept to be created will also be used as a basis for managing other service providers in the future.
We support the development of IT vendor management organization by taking on the following tasks, which we handle in close coordination with the internal units involved:
After adoption of the to-be concept we accompany the implementation of the IT vendor management concept.
IT V
A financial services company has outsourced some of its IT services to various providers. The IT vendor management was set up individually for each outsourcing project, i.e., there is no consistent handling within the company. Now, a comprehensive IT vendor management concept is to be created in order to increase the efficiency of vendor management and to increase the profitability of the external services. For this purpose, a maturity analysis of the existing vendor management is to be carried out as part of a preliminary study in order to obtain an overview of the initial situation.
We provide a maturity model based on ISO 15504 (SPICE) and perform a maturity analysis of the IT vendor management. In this context, we provide the following services in detail:
We prepare all results of the maturity analysis in a management presentation and present it to a management committee.
The IT organization of a company in the healthcare sector is planning to hand over the operation of its local data networks to an external provider. A tender process is to be used to select a service provider who will also take over the transition of the services.
In close coordination with representatives of the internal parties involved (IT department, internal IT customers, purchasing, legal department), we take on the following tasks within the framework of the outsourcing project set up for this purpose:
After the company has contracted a service provider, we take over the customer’s management of the transition phase, in which the provider prepares to take over the contracted services. We coordinate the work to be performed internally and manage the provider’s project services. In addition, we ensure appropriate quality assurance and acceptance of the services set up by the provider.
As part of a process optimization of the network service, our public customer plans to outsource partial services to an external service provider.
A concept for the reorganization of the network service developed by amendos during the planning phase forms the basis of the tender. This concept specifies which tasks are to be performed by the external service provider and how the cooperation with the external service provider will be structured in the future within the framework of IT vendor management.
We start by advising the client on the selection of the appropriate request for proposal procedure. The client decides on a public procurement procedure according to the German regulation “VGV”.
Afterwards, on the basis of our concept, we prepare tender documents that comply with procurement law and consist of the following elements:
After the contract has been announced and the request for proposal documents have been sent out, we provide support in the bidding phase by answering the bidders’ questions. Subsequently, the bids received are evaluated according to formal, technical and economic criteria. In coordination with the client, a documentation of the bid evaluation including the recommended next steps is prepared. On this basis, we accompany bidder discussions to clarify open points and subsequently supplement the bid evaluation with a recommendation for awarding the contract.
The IT organization of a medium-sized industrial company has set itself the goal of aligning its IT services more closely with business requirements. For this purpose, the current services are to be mapped in an IT service catalog for the first time in order to be able to strategically control further development of the service portfolio on this basis.
At the beginning we clarify the basic conditions of the current service provision. In particular, we identify which organizational units provide IT services, how the relationships between them are regulated, and how the coordination with internal customers takes place.
This is followed by an as-is analysis to record and analyze the services that are currently being provided but have not yet been documented in a proper way. For this purpose, we conduct interviews with the IT service providers and customer representatives. The goal is to obtain an overview of the content of the current services and their quality.
Based on this, the services are redesigned. For this purpose, we present a methodology to the stakeholders to be involved and coordinate it with them. The methodology contains a two-stage procedure which – in line with ITIL – enables the definition of technical services and derives business services from them.
Technical and business services are defined on this basis: the service content is compiled for each service and the service levels are defined. The services created are aligned with the customer’s current requirements. At all stages, we work closely with internal IT and business representatives to ensure that the services meet requirements and are economically viable.
The service definitions are documented in a suitable form so that they can be imported into the existing ITSM tool. In addition, this data is prepared in the form of a service catalog that is available to the target groups.
The IT department of a chemical company wants to simplify the access to its services for its IT users. For this purpose, a central service portal has been set up where all service requests can be initiated. In a follow-up project, various service request processes will now be optimized in order to further simplify and accelerate service requests.
We first clarify the basic conditions: the relevant process landscape including the adjacent processes as well as existing process standards and tools, process participants and process users. In addition, we ensure that the employees relevant for the success of the process optimization are involved in the project and attuned to the project task.
After that for each process the following steps are run through in workshops moderated by us (and prepared before and documented afterwards):
We document the to-be processes in accordance with the company’s existing specifications and process modeling standards using existing tools. We accompany all steps established in the company to coordinate and approve the designed target processes and plan and control their implementation. In addition to the technical implementation, this also includes the information and training of various stakeholder groups, the implementation of organizational measures, and the execution of a pilot phase.
As part of a project for an industrial company that operates in over 40 countries, the workplace PCs of around 2,000 employees worldwide are to be harmonized and equipped with the latest operating system and MS Office version (O365). Prior to this work, the existing PC application landscape must be consolidated and the ability of the applications to run on the new operating system must be ensured. In addition, a software distribution system is to be designed and implemented so that the PCs can be set up consistently and automatically worldwide in the future and operated as economically as possible. As part of the migration to the new operating system, obsolete PC hardware must be replaced.
An external service provider is to be contracted and managed for the design of the required standard client image and the software distribution system architecture. Another service provider is responsible for delivering and setting up the new client systems for all sites; this service provider is also to be managed during the global rollout.
The amendos project manager works in the project core team and actively supports the client’s project manager in the sense of a “dual leadership”. The project office is staffed by additional amendos consultants. In particular the following tasks are taken over: