SOP: Vendor Management - YouTube

hi this is Karl Palachuk

with small biz thoughts and this is another SOP video for managed service

providers

today we're going to talk about vendor management

so first of all what is a vendor well a vendor is anybody who provides something

to your end-user client in terms of hardware software or services so it

might be microsoft it might be

intermedia it might be HP 3.com anybody that you would deal with who helps this

client get their business done so the clients going to buy something from this

other organization or maybe they're going to buy it through you but you're

going to manage that relationship and what does that mean

the first piece of vendor management is registering hardware software and

services in the clients name

you need to have a good policy and that's good process for this

I think it's very important that you use in our case we use the administrator

password so administrator at client . com as the registration for hardware

software and services that way no matter what happens that the client can sell

their business to somebody else they can hire a different office manager

they can have a different administrator they can even have a different IT person

and they'll be able to go into that email request a password change check

the email get the new password manage that hardware software and service

it's very important that you do it this way because it's the right thing to do

the client owns the software the hardware of the services and it should

be in their name

so you can control it all as long as you're the one who has access to that

administrator email

the second thing you do in vendor management is to provide translation

services in other words you translate between Geek Speak & business talk

when someone's talking about their services and why it's very important

that somebody moved to the next level and whatever the client will understand

a lot of that conversation but you will

so talking geek to geek you understand what they're trying to sell the client

and then you can give advice about what they should really do

going forward this helps your relationship with your client number

three when actual technical support is required

you can speak geek to geek you can get things done much more quickly you can

get elevated to the next level more quickly

you always want to get tech support from somebody who knows more than you do

well for the client that's anybody but for you it might be at least one or two

notches up the ladder

so you're going to get faster support going to get better support because

you're talking technical to technical rather than business to technical that

translation comes in very handy

number four you're going to manage all the information around this you're going

to document everything especially in the days of cloud services holy smokes i

can't believe how many people have no idea where their domain is registered

whose name is on it where their software is registered

nothing they have no information they don't even know who provides their email

or where their website is housed

that's ridiculous so you need to document all that stuff keep it in good

order and that way you've got records about what you did and didn't do in the

past when you updated licenses

all kinds of stuff you've got that information and you have it at your

fingertips as long as you keep it in a binder or somewhere where you've got it

available to you if you have electronically

that's great make sure this a copy on the client-server next question though

are you on the clock how do you know whether or not you're charging the

client for something well with vendor management

most of the time it's going to be very minimal there's not going to be a lot of

time involved but here's an easy thing you can do to make sure that you're

getting paid for what you do

first of all require that all hardware and software be under a maintenance

agreement

so whether it is the server and a hardware maintenance or it is software

and there's a license maintenance or maintenance agreement as long as it's

covered you can say hey as long as you're paying for that i'm going to give

you my labor at no additional charge because it would be a really quick fix

for hardware you might even say yeah come fix your stuff or for software

you might be able to say okay

send me the new licenses I'll install them whatever but it's going to be

really quick you're not going to waste a lot of time then you draw that line and

if they don't have maintenance if it's not under warranty

then you say i'm sorry i have to charge you for my labor to deal with vendors

when that hardware and software is not under maintenance

so if there is no warranty there's no maintenance agreement then you can build

for your time that's a nice line that you can draw

there are a handful of things where you might say well i expect for example to

deal with the isp say once every three years

ok so you're going to throw a few hours build it into your price of your managed

services and then it's just covered right now if you have a bad year you

have to deal with the isp three times well that's a very unusual thing and

then it won't happen again for five years

finally there's the question of exactly how much control you have some people

say well you should be able to hire and fire and you should be able to choose

the vendors and get rid of a line of business and get another one

I think that that's unrealistic I have dealt with some very big clients who

spend lots and lots of money on their line of business app they're not going

to turn that over to me

they will engage me by the hour to help them understand a decision to help

them choose a new product to help them get the new stuff in place and move

databases and all that kind of stuff but that's very different from choosing a

product that costs them tens of thousands of dollars a year so I

personally I don't even try to have total control of that relationship but

in terms of the big picture

I want to always be the one talking to their vendors about anything that's

remotely technical because that way i know that i've got it documented

I know that it was done a certain way and I know that we can get back to where

we were before

if we need to so take on vendor management but document your processes

and procedures and

have a specific way that you're going to manage all that documentation for small

biz thoughts this is Karl Palachuk wishing you all the luck in your managed service

business