CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management

Introduction

Supporting complete life cycle from business case evaluation, vendor assessment, monitoring and retirement, CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Solution (CIPAce™-VPM) enables a systematic approach to take best advantage of new ideas, innovations, best practices and cost savings from the vendor community.  CIPAce™ gives your organization an effective tool to align vendors with your overall strategic direction, which eliminates the common pitfall of having individual suppliers “selling” or influencing particular pockets of users in the enterprise.

Vendor Management Challenges

Most organizations have not established enterprise-wide best practices to manage vendors.  Piece meals of historical vendor information may be tracked in ERPs, homegrown databases, spreadsheets or just in people’s brain.  Vendors are managed on a one by one basis by individual department, workgroup, project team or personnel who usually lack the understanding of overall vendor management strategy and business needs at the enterprise level.  The tunnel visions of individual decision makers directly contribute to the misalignment between outstanding vendor portfolio and overall corporate business strategy.  The end result is an ever growing vendor base with numerous redundant or underutilized vendors that do not match the overall business needs.  Staffs are overwhelmed by the daily battles with overpayment, late fees, late penalties, unsatisfactory services and products from individual vendors, losing sight on achieving business goals and needs for which vendors are contracted.

Comprehensive Vendor Portfolio Management Solution

CIPAce™-VPM brings total control and transparency to your Purchase Management Office for the management of external vendors, reducing overall vendor sourcing costs and streamlining process and timeline.  From the identification of business needs, evaluation and selection of vendors, managing contracts and assets to performance monitoring, evaluation, and optimization, CIPAce™-VPM supports the entire Vendor Portfolio Management Life Cycle to control, monitor and optimize every step of the process.

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Lifecycle

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Key Benefits

·         Centralize all your Purchase and Vendor Management Office data into one database

·         Enable complete vendor life cycle management

·         Help establish and enforce best practices

·         Plan and align vendor portfolio with overall corporate strategy

·         Seamlessly integrate with existing third-party applications

·         Plan, track and monitor complete financial data to prevent overruns and overcharges

·         Tailor to your organization’s specific needs

·         Monitor renewals to prevent late payment and service interruptions

·         Manage vendor performance and compliance risks

·         Support visibility, transparency and accountability

·         Extend the system easily to include full Project Portfolio Management capabilities

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Lifecycle Steps

Instead of managing vendor relationship with a stand-alone vendor data tracking database like many existing offerings in the market, CIPAce™-VPM supports complete vendor portfolio management lifecycle that involves the following 10 steps:

1.   Identify Business Needs

Identify outsourcing needs and conduct initial analysis on a portfolio of viable proposals for further

considerations.

2.   Evaluate Business Case

Analyze outsourcing business scenarios following customizable workflows on multiple dimensions, such as strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, cost and benefits.

3.   Define Project/RFP

Define approved sourcing project specifications, such as scope, specifications, budgets, schedules, resources, timeline, and initiate the RFP process.

4.   Identify Vendor

Match a project’s requirement with vendors’ capabilities and specialties in the vendor database and invite vendors to bid on RFP.

5.   Evaluate and Select Vendor

Utilize customizable workflows and structured evaluation processes to evaluate vendor responses and pick the winner.

6.   Manage Contract

Define, track and monitor the execution of contracts.  Manage schedule of value and earned value per contract terms.  Manage Purchase Orders.

7.   Timesheet & Payment

Facilitate contractor and consultant timesheets and manage payment process.

8.   Manage Asset

Manage assets created as a result of the outsourcing contracts.  Pass contract technical documents to asset folders and set up ongoing maintenance plans.

9.   Measure Performance

Real-time monitoring of vendor and project performances in order to identify issues and ensure projects are on track.

10.  Optimize

Conduct closeout review of projects and vendor performance in order to optimize vendor portfolios and enhance best practices based on lessons learned.

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Core Capabilities

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management Core Capabilities are powered by a layer of system building blocks that support every step of vendor portfolio life cycle management.

·         Document Management - Allow all types of digital files to be managed within the system with version control, history tracking and advanced searching capabilities.

·         Financial and Fund Management - Support all aspects of project finances, from project candidate financial projections, project budget creation and controls to actual expense and revenue tracking.  CIPAce™ comes with Web APIs to support integration and reconciliation with external financial software.

·         Communications Management - Manage communications such as emails, faxes, meeting notes and auto notices related to vendor management tasks.

·         Risks and Issues Management – Manage risks and ongoing issues. 

·         Reporting and User Portal – Create searchable reports and customizable portals by utilizing any CIPAce™ metadata.  Users can also use Excel or Crystal Report Writer to instantly design reports with complex data makeup or formatting.  CIPAce™ also features an Advanced Analytics Modules, enabling users to create roll up tables, graphics, charts, and diagrams with drill-down capabilities.  All reports and major application data elements can also be incorporated into personalized user portals.

·         Workflow Engine - Allow users to setup customized workflows tailored to each organization’s specific needs.  A wide-variety of workflow templates have been set up to cater to typical IT organization workflows.

Contact Us Today

CIPAce™ Vendor Portfolio Management can be offered either as a customer hosted solution or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  CIPPlanner can customize the solution to fit the needs of your organization.  Contact our sales team today at 888-902-0248 or sales@cipplanner.com

to schedule a demonstration of our solution.