I hope that you have enjoyed the article \u201cPurchasing Services: The Pitfalls, Part II.\u201d If you haven\u2019t been a PurchTips subscriber for that long, you can find Part I (from 2006) here.<\/p>\n
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For many purchasers, buying services after a career of buying goods can be nervewracking. Maybe it\u2019s just me, but I\u2019ve always found that managing a services procurement requires much deeper analysis to feel confident that your selected service provider will perform as needed.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what these two articles are about: reducing risk and disappointments in service procurements.<\/p>\n
As I alluded to in Part II, I recommend lenghty discussions between yourself and the service provider\u2019s top management before making your final decision. In addition to the questions included in Part II, I like to ask about how things are handled when things go off track to get management talking.<\/p>\n
What will it be like if I don\u2019t hear from the key person by the time a deliverable is due?<\/p>\n
Will I have to be the \u201csqueaky wheel\u201d to get things done?<\/p>\n
After how many occurrences of late deliverables do you think that we should treat the engagement as having problems?<\/p>\n
What type of situations would make you want to assign a new key person to our account?<\/p>\n
Again, asking these types questions in person will go a long way towards truly understanding how much of a priority you will be to your new service provider. You can\u2019t distill this stuff onto a spreadsheet. But with experience, you will be able to identify red flags that can help you identify service providers that may pose more risk than their competitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hope that you have enjoyed the article \u201cPurchasing Services: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n