Digital White Papers

LPS 17

publication of the International Legal Technology Association

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54 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT Vendor Consolidation: What's in It for Me? Am I effective at managing multiple license agreements and support contracts? Many of you probably have plenty of practice managing licenses and contracts. Would having fewer to manage give you the opportunity to hold your vendors accountable for their service-level agreements (SLAs)? How oen do I encounter vendor finger-pointing? Pay aention to whether this is happening. A vendor might be wasting your time and leading to slow resolution of issues for your lawyers and staff. Questions for Potential Vendors When you have finished navel-gazing, turn your aention to the vendors that might provide your consolidated services. Questions for them typically involve cost, support and ease of doing business. Here are questions you should ask potential vendors: How cost-effective is consolidation? Consolidating vendors should save you money, but where do the savings come from? Here are areas to explore as you question vendors pitching consolidation: » Progressive discounting (more products or services = higher discount levels) » Lock-ins for growth » "True-down" provisions for soware » Specific discounts on "in-demand" resources (for consulting agreements) How efficient is support? The folks on your helpdesk and application support teams would probably rank support even higher than cost if you asked them about vendor consolidation. On short notice, can your vendor produce a report on your open support tickets? Enhancement requests? Average time to resolution? Identify whether the vendor's tech support group treats your resources as collaborators or enemies. Following consolidation, you should receive more attention, more "insider" information and more influence with your vendor.

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