The Remedy Blog

You have made it to Q4 of another tough year. Your preference would be to just coast into the holidays and put Year 2 of COVID behind you. And so, with as much as you hate to add another to-do item to your list, this might be the perfect time to have some proactive conversations with your largest and most complex technology provider.  

Below are three topics you can address with your technology vendor in Q4 that might improve your relationship in 2022 and beyond:

1. Regular meetings at your location: Consider setting one up now if you don’t have a regular, planned meeting with your core vendor's client partner on your team’s calendar. Whether that cadence is 1x per month or 1x per quarter, consider proactively covering the following tactical items to improve your relationship:

• Service Level Agreements - How is the vendor performing against any SLA’s in the current contract?
• Development roadmap - What technology are you anticipating out of them that has been promised? Are they hitting the anticipated timelines?
• Product Implementations - Any products planned for installation in the next 12 months and how are those implementations proceeding?

2. Contracts - Is the core renewal coming up in the next 36 months? Does the termination date of the core contract align with the contract termination dates of other major products (debit, Bill Payments, digital, item processing, managed service, etc.)? Are you looking for a proposal from the vendor? Considering a consultant to review your position and make a proactive proposal for a renewal contract? Are you looking to replace either your core or other technology vendors?

3. Strategic Panning -While Strategic planning typically occurs in Q1, you may already know what products you need from the vendor. Also, which of the vendor’s products will you need to sunset and replace in 2022? Does your client partner know what that list looks like? Do you have money in the budget that was anticipated for this year that might carry over into 2022? Any strategic initiatives for this year that have yet to be met that require action in 2022?

Many executives feel like they are just too busy to proactively manage their vendor, but what is the old saying?…. You either manage them or they manage you…

Either way, if you want to lower your stress level with your vendor, consider getting ahead of some of these topics now. It will definitely make for a better 2022.