5 Key Considerations When Procuring Technology

[Music] hi i’m tina fernandez managing partner of orbital law i’ve been involved in technology procurement for over 20 years negotiating contracts for multinationals to smes as well as acting for technology vendors in this video i’d like to share some of what i’ve learned about technology procurement over the years we all know that procuring technology can be a painful process if you don’t get the fundamentals right i will now outline five key considerations to bear in mind during the process

technology evolves and changes very quickly these days at some point you’re either going to have to renew or replace it either because the supplier no longer supports it or there may be new products on the market always think of procuring technology as an overlapping cycle and not a linear process there really isn’t a start and an end you must initiate the procurement process for the replacement technology well before the current contract comes to an end so as not to disrupt your business and the process starts with identifying

what you need this is best illustrated with an example if you want to automate business processes along with identifying the functionality you require consider whether the application you source needs to integrate with applications that you currently use if you don’t you could end up creating a new manual process to transfer data or you may have to spend more money developing custom integrations between the applications you must identify all your business requirements and business outcomes before you start to source as you will need these to find the right supplier

[Music] once you know what you need you need to find the right supplier the more complex your requirements the more difficult it may be to find a supplier who can meet your every need in a formal procurement exercise potential suppliers may take completely different approaches as to how they intend to meet your requirements and this can be a positive thing so be open to different possibilities [Music] you’d be amazed at the number of disputes that have arisen as a result of poorly drafted schedules to technology contracts

one example that comes to mind has to do with a two pound network cable the contract was silent as to who was responsible for supplying the cable doesn’t sound like much of a dispute does it until you realize that five hundred thousand cables needed to be supplied what your technology lawyer will do is turn those diagrams and service descriptions into obligations and deliverables and ensure that performance can be measured the contract is your roadmap as to what will be delivered and how don’t put it in a cupboard use it to

manage your supplier on an ongoing basis [Music] most technology contracts are multi-year contracts and technology can change a lot during that time requirements change and contracts will need to be amended so it is important that you have a good working relationship with your supplier relationships sour and disputes arise when parties deviate from the contract without documenting changes so manage your contract and make sure that these changes are captured here’s a quick recap of the five key considerations i have shared today if there’s one thing you can change to

make your next technology procurement more successful i would say spend time identifying what you need and then make sure you put it in the contract and finally don’t put the contract in a cupboard i hope you found this video helpful for a more detailed overview of the five key considerations you can download our whitepaper by clicking on the link below if we can help with your technology procurement please get in touch with us at orbital law thank you for watching you