If you are an IS manager looking forward to outsource IT and need assistance in vendor selection, then ACE services can be very handy for you. ACE goes well beyond the routine vendor selection procedures and offers cutting edge insights into vendor selection. We’ll get into what makes us uniquely positioned to help you better in vendor selection a little later in this page, but for now, consider the following questions:

• Assume you are outsourcing low-budget applications; would you be comfortable in choosing between low-end teams of high profile companies and high-end teams of low profile companies? Typically, high profile IT service companies have their range of employees and assign their best teams to high value customers and on the other hand, low profile companies would be eager to move up the value chain and happy to service low budget customers with full interest. When faced with such tricky choices, it needs industry insights well beyond the routine vendor selection procedures to make an apt decision.
• Assume that you are outsourcing high-budget applications and are also expecting a higher level of success. Would you be comfortable in making out which vendor among the seemingly equally capable vendors to select?
• Would you be comfortable in making out if the level of service that you are getting justifies the billing rate?

Well, ACE can help in answering these and many more questions related to vendor selection. The basket of services offered by ACE in vendor selection is shown in the diagram below.

Competency assessment of vendors: The competency levels of the project managers of vendor organization can be assessed based on their certifications, best practices followed, responses to typical situations and so on by interviewing a few representative project managers. 

Vendor profiling: Apart from the competency level of the project management staff, a customer must also look at the profile of the vendor as an organization. This includes assessing the portfolio of projects that they have delivered, quality certifications of the organization, employee friendliness policies, technical expertise in specific areas and so on.

Matching vendor and customer profiles: Value often comes with a price tag and the specific needs of the customer including price affordability must be taken into account while selecting the best vendor who offers price that the customer is willing to afford and is the most suitable given specific needs of the customer. This is done based on matching several parameters of vendor and the customer. 

ACE is uniquely positioned to pass on insights on vendor selection because ACE consultants deal with a complete spectrum of software service organizations of various sizes and capabalities. ACE has dealt with organizations that have a few dozen employees, a few hundred employees to a few thousand employees and over a lakh employees also. ACE has engaged with software service providers who have varying degrees of process maturities and delivery capabilities and understand typical profiles of vendors and what to expect from them. This helps ACE to match vendors to suit specific needs and profile of the customer.

For more details, please contact us.