The What happens next?

Selecting a partner to oversee and maintain your business-critical applications has a significant influence on your company’s success and expansion.

Comparing multiple suppliers, particularly during procurement, can be a complex task. This guide offers advice to those seeking a new provider to support and manage one or more applications.

Alongside conventional considerations like cost and performance, we delve into other crucial factors vital for a successful partnership, while examining typical mistakes to avoid.

1: Evaluating cost vs. need

Price is always a crucial factor and buying support may feel like buying a standard commodity. But is that always the case?

It is vital not to fixate solely on numbers. Defining your requirements and preferences clearly is critical to get the best value for your specific needs.

Clearly communicate your business needs and requirements to potential suppliers to align their services with your expectations and goals. Define specific features, integrations, or support levels crucial to your business. Assess the costs associated with transitioning to a new supplier, considering both the initial cost and long-term
implications to facilitate a seamless switch.

Ensure your potential providers are clear about the costs of services such as data conversion, knowledge transfer, user training, and process adaptation.

2: Understand how potential suppliers operate

Select a supplier that follows a business model that fosters cooperative working. Give preference to those that are motivated to create a sustained partnership and continued achievements by sharing risks and benefits. This might involve opting for a service provider billing based on performance and outcomes rather than solely on incidents or hours. This approach can help prevent cost escalation during collaboration and ensures the provider is incentivised to address issues permanently, rather than temporarily.

3: Prepare carefully

Allocate both time and resources to a comprehensive preparation phase to precisely determine your requirements, objectives, and any anticipated problems.

Preparation is key to establish an objective comparison base for supplier evaluation. Perform a thorough evaluation using a comprehensive methodology. Clear criteria and requirements enable you to fairly and consistently compare and assess various suppliers’ proposals. This may encompass technical specifications, expertise, experience, and references. Good preparation reduces the risk of having a partner that cannot meet your precise needs or is poorly aligned to your business. The risk of not doing this can create delays or extra costs.

4: Check cybersecurity procedures

Prioritise suppliers with robust security protocols and incident management to safeguard your data and minimise business disruptions.

Opt for providers with proven expertise in handling and preventing cyber threats. Request details on security certifications, incident management protocols, and past experiences dealing with threats.

Transparency and documentation of the supplier’s security procedures are essential. Expect detailed accounts and evidence of the supplier’s capability to address cyber threats both effectively and proactively. This can be achieved through a security audit or by reviewing their security policies and procedures.

5: Communicate clear KPIs

Define and communicate clear KPIs to ensure you enable the outcomes that your business needs. Work together with the supplier to set and communicate clear and measurable KPIs that aim to enhance efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.

Once decided, it should be clear how and when progress will be measured and tracked. Make sure to keep an eye on KPIs regularly and set up a feedback system to continuously monitor and evaluate performance against the agreed standards. You can achieve this by planning regular meetings to review performance and by finding ways to continuously improve KPI data.

When searching for a new supplier or going through a procurement process, using these strategies and principles can help you find a good and dependable partner to support your business needs for the long term. It can be a costly and time-consuming process so it is important to get it right first time!

Care365, our application and management support service, goes beyond ensuring system stability during critical business moments, resolving errors to minimise business impact, or proactively addressing issues for end users and customers.

We consider it to be a lasting partnership where our consultants, equipped with extensive technical expertise, continuously assist your business in utilising and enhancing Dynamics 365 to maximise the return on your investment.

Nexer can offer:

• Service window from 8/5 to 24/7 follow-the-sun support from six global centres.
• Service packages that can be adjusted to fit your needs, whether you need short-term help or
• long-term support.
• Modular business models that range from charging per hour to fixed prices and everything in
• between, like charging per contact, and more.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that are clear and suitable, based on specified times.
• Quality and operational performance indicators.
• Various communication methods across different languages.

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We offer our Care365 support services to businesses across all sectors. Please contact martin.burden@nexergroup.com to discover the Nexer difference and why so many UK companies are moving to us.