Streamlining Your Vendors Helps Streamline Your Business

How many vendors and subscriptions does your business rely on to function day to day?

Now, to ask a question that hopefully has (but very easily doesn’t have) the same answer: How many vendors and subscriptions does your business currently pay for?

Unfortunately, for most small and medium-sized businesses, these answers can vary widely, which often creates confusion and leads to wasted capital. Let’s talk about a simple and reliable way to help align the answers to these two key questions: vendor management.

What is Vendor Management?

Simply put, vendor management is a service IC Data Communications LLC, your friendly neighborhood IT partner, provides to coordinate all your dealings with vendors so you only have one number (ours) to call for help. 

How does this help? There are a few ways:

You’re No Longer Stuck in the Middle of Your Vendors Playing the Blame Game

Let’s say that you get a certain software, Business Necessity 1, from Vendor A, and another software, Business Necessity 2, from Vendor B. On top of that, Vendor C provides Business Necessity 3, a software that allows Business Necessity 1 to communicate with Business Necessity 2.

If Business Necessity 1 suddenly stops communicating with Business Necessity 2, which vendor do you think will claim responsibility, A, B, or C?

If you answered D, none of the above, you’re right 99.99% of the time. More likely, Vendor A will point the finger toward Vendor C, claiming that Business Necessity 3 doesn’t work properly. Meanwhile, Vendor C will claim that Vendor B doesn’t have Business Necessity 2 properly configured. As for Vendor B, they’ll likely blame Vendor A, claiming that Business Necessity 1 doesn’t provide its information in the right format.

Now, do you have the time to deal with this inter-vendor kerfuffle every time something maybe goes wrong? Of course not.

This is the first benefit of our vendor management services: you don’t have to deal with these situations. Instead, IC Data Communications LLC will serve as your representative working between these vendors as they figure out the real problem amongst themselves. You’re free of having to chase these vendors down for updates or to field questions between them… you can continue to solve the problems that pop up within your business.

You Also Don’t Have to Deal With Duplicate Subscriptions and Redundant Payments

This relates to the question we asked at the start of this conversation: how many subscriptions do you have compared to how many you need?

It is too easy to continue paying for one service, and the service meant to replace it. Are you a Microsoft business, a Google business, or a “both” business? How many Customer Relationship Management tools are your teams using? Are team members sticking to the approved tools, or are they adding new services to the expense account? If an employee leaves, is their account getting turned off, or are you continuing to pay for their specific portion of your business’ software?

This is another thing you need to keep a tight leash on, but probably don’t have a free hand to hold said leash. This is also another way we can step in and help. We’ll examine your network to identify duplicate services and unused licenses.

You Won’t Be Investing in Three Tools Where One is Necessary

On a similar note, let’s say you aren’t using either of the two major business software platforms, and instead have assembled a network of separate tools that each do one very specific task. Whether you prefer Microsoft or Google, many people underestimate how large the actual utility each offers actually is.

Regardless of whichever provider you choose, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will get all the tools you need (plus many more) for less than you’re paying for the piecemeal approach. Even if it somehow is more expensive—practically impossible, by the way—you have to also consider that these platforms are built to work well with each other. You could potentially get your value back simply by saving time, no longer moving data back and forth.

Check Your Statements, See What Could Be Consolidated

Do a simple audit of your workplace tools and investments. If there are any things that could be consolidated or payments you didn’t realize you were still making to certain vendors, start trimming… or, better yet, let us do the trimming on your behalf.

We want you to be able to manage your business, not the vendors your business relies on. Let us take over for you in that regard. Give us a call at (313) 887-1297 to learn more.