Business Support: Factors for Finding Vendors That Make Your Life Easier

If you were hiring a new worker you would no doubt interview them and check out their references before offering them the job, but with time constraints often a factor, some business owners are not as diligent when it comes to finding a vendor to work with.

Many of us need to use external resources to plug the skills-gap that we might have or simply to make life easier and using people like Bitboyz IT support and other vendors like them, often help the business to run more smoothly and efficiently.

What do you know about your vendor?

If you take a look at the existing vendors that you have a relationship with, how well do you know them?

It is a regular scenario where a vendor may be appointed to provide a service or product that helps you to run your business but we may not know that much about their business and the reputation they enjoy.

This is not to say that there may be a problem of course and you may well have chosen a vendor who turns out be an excellent partner in business and you develop a meaningful and rewarding relationship.

When you are looking at appointing a vendor, it still pays to make some checks before agreeing to let them work for you, as you would not normally appoint a worker without confirming their background and the same rules should apply when searching out a suitable vendor.

You only have to consider that your business reputation could be at risk if you entrust even a small part of your business to an external supplier or resource, who just might turn out to be not as reliable as you hoped in an emergency situation.

Covering the bases

It makes sound business sense to choose your vendors with a certain degree of care and to cover as many bases as possible in terms of background checks and suitability.

You should consider the idea of trying to establish whether the vendor you are thinking about working with shares the same business beliefs and values as you do and whether they will be a good cultural fit.

This will help to ensure that you are able to work well together and cope with any bumps in the road if and when they occur. Another way of ensuring that there are no misunderstandings or illusions about what you expect from your vendor, is to create a service level agreement.

The idea of a service level agreement might seem a bit formal to some business owners but it is something that is well worth doing because it takes away any doubt about what you expect from them and by signing, they are agreeing to meet these required standards.

One way of shortlisting your choice of vendors and before you get to issuing a service level agreement, is to document your needs so that potential vendors can see exactly what it is you need and offer their proposed solution.

Get talking

In much the same way as you would create a list of potential candidates to come and work directly for you, once you have a number of vendors who you think might be suitable, it is time to get talking and invite them in for an initial discussion.

This is a part of the process that can sometimes get bypassed due to time constraints but meeting them in person and discussing how they are going to meet your needs, will often give you a good pointer to who you might work well with.

Making the choice

You will probably be able to eliminate a few vendors at this point and once you have your shortlist of potential partners to work with, it would be a good time to ask them to submit their prices.

It often pays to wait until you have had the first quotes in before asking vendors for their best and final price.

This process of elimination will help you to weed out those that may didn’t seem to be a good fit for whatever reason and you will then be left with a few vendors who have been thoroughly vetted, meet your standards and requirements and are within the cost range that you find acceptable.

It may seem like a lot of work to choose a vendor, but diligence often pays off and it is your business reputation that could be at stake if you don’t take the time to confirm their credentials and suitability.

Jeff Dennis is the President of Bitboyz, a multi-platform managed IT company based in Cleveland Ohio supporting companies with Microsoft, Apple, and Linux systems. Jeff has been involved in the IT support industry for over 14 years.