Multi-Vendor Environments

As a follow up to Thursday’s post on collaboration with other firms in a multi-vendor environment, I felt compelled to follow up with a piece on working in a multi-vendor environment.  I realize my words may have come across a bit rash, and it may seem like I loathe the concept of working in these sorts of constructs.

Quite the opposite actually.  I have been able to have some great success working in these confines and believe that organizations actually see a ton of benefit when these sorts of sandboxes are created.

Let me share just a few of the benefits of working in a multi-vendor environment:

  • Multi-vendor environments force everyone to be on top of their game all of the time, lest they want to see themselves cut out for better resources or firms via what-I-like-to-call Corporate Natural Selection
  • I firmly believe that the level of efficiency, productivity, and quality of work increases exponentially when there are people with different paychecks fact-checking and following up on each other’s work
  • Having diversity of thought when approaching a program of initiatives or area of the business allows clients to use their skills more in an advisory manner where they get to pick and choose the best ideas from multiple sources (and so that it’s not just one firm’s stock templates/processes that are force fed down said client’s throat – because we all know how well that tends to go… #Sarcasm)
  • More firms = more people to network with, and I think everyone should have at least a part of their imagination reserved for “what happens” if and when they need to move on to a different project, firm, or company to progress their career
  • Selfishly for the organization, the presence of more vendors usually allows supply chain teams to drive down rates so that the professional services providers have to take lower margins in order to sign the work, resulting in much lower cost of delivery for projects

Again, I cannot express enough how excited I am when I get to work in multi-vendor environments.  Even when the building’s on fire and everyone is racing to cover their butts, it provides if nothing else great enjoyment because everyone has to be on their toes.  Thursday’s post was really about my loathe for rework, and the massive waste of time that will inevitably fall upon us for sitting in “current state definition” meetings (meetings on meetings to talk about meetings – yay!).

Til Next Time,

Michael