Project:

Commercial Awareness Training for IT Managers

Scope:

Individual IT Managers had managed their supplier base using best endeavours and personal experience, without any formal IT Procurement training.

There was little awareness of key contract terms and what could be negotiated on in Hardware/Software/ Services/Telecoms spend.

Managers had little time available to go on training, and needed advice on how to manage their own suppliers, rather than just procurement theory.

The company had issues with specific vendor performance, but little formal structure around vendor management and performance monitoring.

Key Business Benefits:

• Awareness of best practice and what can be achieved, to all the management team
• Used that years' contract renewal schedule to teach the most relevant theory for upcoming supplier negotiations
• Role play and document drafting practice was included so that managers could practice what they were learning
• New skills were immediately used with positive results

The Turnstone Approach:

We designed a 2 day flexi-course split into ½ day chunks, on the following topics:

• Analysis of the Land Securities supplier base
• Contract principles, key clauses
• Differences between purchasing hardware, software, services and telecoms
• SOW drafting techniques
• Negotiation - key principles and some tactics
• Vendor management

Our procurement consultants mixed procurement theory with real life experience and their knowledge of the Land Securities supplier base to provide an informative and interesting course covering the fundamentals of IT Procurement and Vendor Management.

Course handouts were designed with ongoing reference in mind, with ‘cut-out-and-keep' sections

The follow-up sessions with the IT managers allowed them explore in more detail any questions or issues.

Wendy Antaw, IS Programme Manager, Land Securities

"Turnstone ran a customised course for our IT managers, aimed at increasing their commercial and contractual skills, to enable them to deal more effectively with our portfolio of IT vendors.

I am confident my team is now more commercially skilled. The course was lively with a good blend of theory and practical examples from our own vendor portfolio.

I fully expect the investment to more than pay off over the year - a small improvement in our approach to our IT vendors, may well realise large improvements."