On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Maureen Cusack <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> And then ideally the vendor agrees to
> the lengthy customized contract. Which vendors big and small rarely do. The
> big vendors somehow get away with it. Refusal to negotiate is, I
> suspect, the 'business model' of many vendors. It's certainly the way they
> end up making money.
>

having been in the industry for almost 30 years i've found that the great
majority of vendors (big and small) are willing to negotiate. The key is
that results of the negotiations should be a win-win for both sides.. Don't
be too quick to blame the vendor for problems that may be a result of your
operations. For example years ago I worked for a major company where the
employees were constantly complaining that our off site vendor was not
providing the expected service. The contract did not belong to me, but
instead facilities management. Anyway I started to investigate the
complaints. Turned out boxes weren't getting delivered because of how
policies. 1) drivers were not allowed past the security desk since they
didn't have a security badge from us. 2) They were only allowed to give the
materials to the individual who had requested them, they could not leave
them at the security desk (good!) 3) Vendor procedures were that they could
only wait for 20 minutes and then they had to leave to complete their
deliveries. Oh! and I found out that we weren't paying our invoices. The
only way we found out about that was when the vendor threatened to cut off
service and access to our records. A/P hadn't told anyone that the PO was
empty among other things.

solutions give the drivers security badges that meant they could go up to
the main floors like other vendors, provide the drivers with the telephone
numbers of the individuals so they could be called ahead of time with an
anticipated deliver time.

the vendor wasn' t perfect by any means but they were willing to work with
us considering we had a national contract with them.

When negotiating contracts I always worked with Purchasing and Legal to get
what I wanted. in the contract.

-- 
Peter Kurilecz CRM CA
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Richmond, Va
http://twitter.com/RAINbyte
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