31
WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Are You Your Vendor's Captive? How To Optimize Your Research Dollars
firm's direction, adapted their content, pricing and support to align
with our long-term goals. Those are the vendors with whom we have
developed strong partnerships and made longer-term commitments.
When we could not reach that level of understanding or alignment
with certain suppliers, we made the difficult decision to decrease or
eliminate our usage of their product over time.
Where We Began
We started with two layers of assessment. First, we conducted a
survey to determine feasibility. With this light-touch approach, we
incorporated financial elements such as cost and cost recovery;
quantitative usage elements identifying preferences and key content
sets; and qualitative inputs from both user surveys and interviews
with key constituents. This information allowed us to form our initial
recommendations, spark dialogue with the leadership team and
obtain feedback from suppliers.
Next, we did a deep dive into our actual usage to fully
vet the financial impact (risk and reward), communicate with
and understand specific needs from our users, and work with
our consultant and suppliers to align viable solutions for our
users' needs. With this layer of assessment, we finalized our
recommendations and received our leadership's approval.
Successful User Dialog
To get quality user input, we used HBR's methodology for
customizing interviews to each user by creating change personas.
USAGE – VENDOR A
USAGE DROPPED BY OVER 95% IN ANNUAL "RETAIL VALUE"
In
$
USD
Sept
2015
HIST
AVG
Nov
2015
Jan
2016
Mar
2016
May
2016
Jul
2016
Sep
2016
Nov
2016
Jan
2017
1:1 Discussions
Announced
"Free Vendor B"
Users deemed
to be low-risk
received a
simple email
questionnaire
as a follow-up
to the survey,
while higher-risk
users were called
directly.
