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IT managers have a lot to learn about the process of choosing an IT vendor, says Perkins, former CIO at Dole Food Co. and Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. who is now managing partner at Leverage Partners Inc., a consulting firm that splits its headquarters between Louisville, Ky., and Washington. Leverage Partners helps ... |
"Vendor buys" account for more than 60% of a typical IT budget outside of personnel costs, Perkins says. In a Fortune 500 company, there may be as many as 400 people buying IT products, and very few are giving the process much thought, he adds. Some are following architectural standards, others are just buying what's c... |
Some IT sales sneak in like Trojan horses, buried in plant equipment or taken on through mergers and acquisitions; others evolve - you bought telecommunications services from New England Telephone, which became Nynex and then Bell Atlantic, and now you're dealing with Verizon. |
"This is the real blocking and tackling of IT, and we put it on autopilot and nobody thinks about it," Perkins says. But a few IT leaders have given the vendor selection process a lot of thought, and they share some ideas about what makes their approaches work. |
1. Establish the need. "The day of deep pockets is gone," says Jim Thannum, director of Internet engineering and communications at FedEx Services Corp. in Memphis. "The technology should advance the business. It's not there to entertain us." |
2. Select a team, "not just the tech people," says Colleen Mahoney, director of vendor relations for information resources at Marriott International Inc. in Bethesda, Md. An all-tech vendor-selection team is a disaster waiting to happen because members may get blinded by the technology. |
Include end users and people from finance, training, application development, vendor relations, legal and privacy/security, says Mahoney. At The Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta, a team works with its Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise Program to keep minority firms in the selection loop. |
3. Choose a strategy, says Diane M. Stanko, director of procurement for global IT and services at Alcoa Inc. in Pittsburgh. For example, with technologies such as e-mail, databases and antivirus software, there's a competitive advantage in enabling standard, worldwide use. In other areas, such as telecommunications, a ... |
Decide how to go to market as well. "We try to take full advantage of the competitive marketplace using e-tools such as online bidding and e-procurement," Stanko says. |
4. Write a request for proposals (RFP). It will force the team to think about what's important. "We look at architecture, maturity, cost, serviceability and reliability of product," says Thannum. "We look at their customer base, pricing arrangements, support and company stability. We need to be sure if a product touche... |
Determine your evaluation criteria and the amount of weight accorded to each requirement as you write the RFP, Perkins suggests—and don't waver. He tells of one company that changed the weightings to keep its emotional favorite from being bypassed. "It completely derailed the entire selection process and threw the proj... |
5. Focus on total cost of ownership, not just initial cost, says Perkins, and don't get hung up on how much each department pays out. Look at how much your company pays. |
6. Develop your negotiation strategy in parallel with your RFP, Mahoney says. For example, Marriott demands that a product work to the specifications it outlines before paying for it. "It doesn't make any sense to hide these things and spring them on the vendor after the fact," she says. "We want to be upfront because ... |
7. Consider the value of relationships as you evaluate bids, Mahoney adds, "because not all [vendor] relationships are created equal." |
For example, because Coca-Cola has identified roughly 20 strategic suppliers, it can often target one or several of them and skip the RFP, says Kimberly Fey, relationship manager for information infrastructure. |
If you're rebidding a product or service that's already in place, consider the value of incumbency. "There is a cost to change," Perkins says. "Figure it out upfront." |
Also, think about intangibles. If a prospective vendor is one of your biggest customers, will it take its business elsewhere if it doesn't get the deal? "Don't forget to factor the value of that relationship into the equation," Perkins says. |
8. Keep your options open. As you negotiate, deal with multiple vendors simultaneously, Perkins says. "If you can get a little bidding contest going, that can be a good thing - within reason." Also negotiate the concerns of all your team members—from legal to training—in parallel, not serially, he says. Otherwise, conc... |
For example, during the negotiation and contracting process, Coca-Cola works with its strategic suppliers to identify second-tier opportunities for minority and women-owned businesses. |
9. Be a good customer. Understand the cost structure of the vendor so you can help it cut you a better deal, Perkins says. For example, if you were buying PCs from a reseller, you could offer it an advance monthly buying forecast. That saves the reseller money in RFPs it won't have to answer, inventory it won't have to... |
This win/win approach is at the heart of all good vendor agreements. "Both sides must benefit from the relationship," Mahoney says. "If we structure a contract where only we benefit, we may end up not getting the best of their resources." |
10. Split the contract between two vendors if possible, Perkins says. "From the IT standpoint, you may want to standardize, but from a business point, you have to look at [the] entire value of the business," he says. |
Splitting a contract isn't always desirable, but it can be done if you're dealing with commodity hardware, systems integration or telecommunications services. "You can give 60% to AT&T and 40% to MCI," says Perkins. "It keeps them on their toes. And if they mess up, it's easier to change it." |
11. Anticipate the future. Perkins once negotiated for a software contract at a time when he knew his company was likely to spin off a division within two years, so he wrote into the contract the ability to transfer licenses at the same price. "You don't always have that luxury, but, to the extent you can, address it,"... |
12. Don't let technology turn your head. "It's so easy to get enamored with technology," says Thannum, "but you've got to look at it in terms of all those other metrics. You've got to stay pragmatic." |
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will dominate as the top cloud computing type, capturing two-thirds of all public cloud spending in 2017. |
Spending on public cloud services and infrastructure is forecast to reach $266 billion in 2021, according the latest data from IDC. Public cloud services spending is expected to reach $128 billion in 2017, up 25.4 percent over 2016. |
Sofware-as-a-Service (SaaS) will dominate as the top cloud computing type, capturing two-thirds of all public cloud spending this year. Customer relationship management applications and enterprise resource management will also account for significant public cloud spending throughout the forecast period, while Infrastru... |
The US will account for more than 60 percent of worldwide cloud revenues through 2021, with total spending of around $163 billion. By industry, IDC says discrete manufacturing, professional services, and banking will spend the most on public cloud services, while media, retail, and telecom will see some of the fastest ... |
"Much of the public cloud services growth in these industries is coming from new projects and initiatives from functional areas like customer service and sales," says IDC customer insights analyst Eileen Smith. |
In terms of company size, IDC says more than half of all public cloud spending will come from businesses with more than 1,000 employees, while medium-sized businesses will deliver about 20 percent of spending throughout the forecast. Purchase priorities vary depending on company size, but overall IDC expects CRM and ER... |
West Virginia Mountaineers defensive coordinator Vic Koeninng during the spring game on Saturday. |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Vic Koenning’s top priority as a defensive coordinator is stopping the run. That being the case, his first dress rehearsal at West Virginia was an unqualified success. |
Going up against the No. 1 offensive line in the spring game, the first-string defense allowed 81 yards on 32 rushing attempts. |
Koenning made it clear that mentality is coming with him on the recruiting trail, as well. |
Koenning isn’t quite as pleased with where the Mountaineers are against the pass right now. |
Austin Kendall and Trey Lowe were a combined 11-of-19 for 205 yards against the top defense. Kendall victimized the defense with the deep ball several times, hitting completions of 60, 40 and 39 yards. Lowe had a 28-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the scrimmage. |
That said, Koenning is hopeful his secondary will be less exposed in the season than it was during the spring game because quarterbacks will have less time to throw. |
“If you drop back and you know you’re not gonna get hit, you feel pretty good about it,” Koenning said. |
He imagined the life of a spring game quarterback being pretty easy. |
Koenning also needs more takeaways to be truly satisfied with the performance of his defense. His last two defenses at Troy ranked in the Top 20 nationally in takeaways. The lone turnover forced by the No. 1 defense in the spring game was a gift from Lowe, who forced a throw that was picked off by Keith Washington when... |
The regular-season defensive product should look better – or at least more complex. Koenning stuck to the basics and did not call any blitzes Saturday. |
There are several specialized roles the Mountaineers have yet to determine. That part comes in August. |
US hip-hop star Wyclef Jean has formally entered the presidential race in Haiti. |
Born on the island, he has been actively involved in reconstruction efforts after a deadly earthquake devastated the Caribbean nation earlier this year. |
Lori “The Resident” Harfenist asked people in the Big Apple what they think of celebrities switching from entertainment to politics. |
Technology is advancing how medicine is practiced, giving patients the chance to participate more fully in their healthcare. These new developments have the potential to elevate the provider-patient relationship, and are being welcomed, for the most part, by both groups. |
Technology can help. 84% of patients and 69% of physicians agreed that they embrace technology to enhance and aid the diagnostic process. |
Smartphones are good for specific tests. More than half of patients and physicians agreed that patients can use smartphone apps to do routine blood tests and send the results to their physicians. Digital technology allows results to be available much more quickly than from a traditional lab. Likewise, 66% of patients a... |
Leave diagnosing to providers. Physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, and physician assistants all agreed that making diagnoses from digital data should be done by providers. |
Lab results—physicians first. The majority of doctors and patients (77% and 58%, respectively) agree that physicians should review lab results before patients have access to them, but more patients than doctors (34% vs. 15%) thought that patients should have access to lab results as soon as they are available. |
In the study, while 96% of both physicians and patients agreed that patients should have access to their EMR, 87% of physicians and physician assistants were concerned that giving patients access to EMR data might make them more likely to ask for additional unnecessary tests. Additionally, 89% of patients and 64% of ph... |
Giving patients access to their physician’s notes is an issue that is under consideration worldwide. Health systems in the U.S. have already done research on this with encouraging results from patients and physicians alike. |
A report published in the Feb. 10, 2015, issue of the British Medical Journal, “U.S. Experience with Doctors and Patients Sharing Clinical Notes” discussed the results of the OpenNotes Initiative, a study that involved more than 17,000 patients and 105 physicians at three hospital systems in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania... |
After 12 months, over 60% of patients reported better understanding of their medical conditions, taking better care of their health, and feeling more involved in their care. Among physicians, only 3% spent more time answering patients’ questions, and 11% spent more time writing or editing notes. Ninety-nine percent of ... |
Giving patients access to their medical information may initially spur them to question their physicians about their condition or about the meaning of their lab results, and this may be more time consuming for physicians. More importantly though, it shows that when given enough information, patients are often enthusias... |
1 comment about "Patients And Physicians On Using Technology And Sharing Information". |
Casey Quinlan from Mighty Casey Media LLC, March 27, 2015 at 10:36 a.m. |
I'll push back on the idea that giving patient access to their EMR data will cause "demanding patient syndrome." That myth was powerfully debunked in the premiere issue of JAMA-Oncology (link to the JAMA editorial, which included study references: http://oncology.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2108844), and the... |
GIMME. MY. DAMN. DATA. is the rallying cry on the patient side of healthcare transformation, technology division. Go search for tweets with #gmdd in 'em, follow real-time/real-world discussion of this issue from all points of the heathcare system compass. |
Sophie Smith went missing three days ago. |
A coastline search is taking place for missing student Sophie Smith. |
The 21-year-old Gorleston woman disappeared from her home on Avondale Road home in the early hours of Boxing Day wearing only a vest and shorts. |
Norfolk Police have acknowledged that she is thought to have "gone into the sea" after battling depression. |
Sophie had been receiving treatment for depression and anxiety. Our enquiries have revealed there’s been a degree of pre-planning to her disappearance and this, combined with her mental state and comments made the previous day, suggest the most likely scenario is that she has gone into the sea. |
The sea searches will be carried out by the coastguard while the police helicopter is being deployed to conduct coastline searches. Based on tidal analysis, the searches will be carried out in targeted areas. |
Sophie left the family home at about 3am on December 26th and she is captured on CCTV a short time later heading towards the seafront. |
Officers say she didn't take her mobile phone and hasn't accessed her bank accounts or social media accounts since she left home. |
There have been no other confirmed sightings since then. |
Police had earlier said that "the hope of finding Sophie safe and well diminishes as time goes on". |
A Facebook page called Find Sophie Smith has gained more than 23,000 followers, and volunteers have helped co-ordinate their own searches. |
Her family are also thanking people who have been involved in the search so far and for all the messages of support they have received. |
Were it not for Joe Flacco, it’s fair to say that recent Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed may well have retired without having ever won a Super Bowl title. While he may never have been a top five quarterback at any point in his career, the Baltimore Ravens quarterback did have one bizarrely exceptional postseason run in 201... |
But the Ravens missed the postseason in four of the five seasons that followed posting a 40-40 record overall in that time, the vast majority of which Flacco was under center for. He was 4-5 as a starter in 2018 before suffering a hip injury that allowed for the transition to 2018 rookie first-round pick Lamar Jackson. |
And Jackson proceeded to help the team go on a 6-1 run, finishing 10-6 and as champions of the AFC North, by a hair. They may have subsequently been beaten by the Los Angeles Chargers in the Wildcard Round, but it signaled a change, and the Ravens have been very clear not only that Jackson is their quarterback moving f... |
Of course it would be silly, given his cap hit. Even if they couldn’t trade him, they would still release him, but many expect them to be able to get at least a second-round pick for him, with likely landing spots including Jacksonville, Denver, and Washington. |
For Reed, Jacksonville is the one that makes sense. With the Jaguars seemingly having accepted the reality that Blake Bortles is not their answer, Reed told TMZ that he thinks his former teammate could help push that team over the top to Super Bowl status. |
The Jaguars continue to have one of the top defenses in the league, but their offense really bottomed out last season, largely coinciding with injuries to Leonard Fournette and—shockingly—poor play from Bortles at the quarterback position. |
“He helped me win a Super Bowl”, he said, referring to the 2012 run in which he threw 11 touchdowns passes with no interceptions for 1140 yards and a quarterback rating of 117.2. “We wouldn’t have won the Super Bowl if he was turning the ball over”. |
While he said that it’s “already” Lamar Jackson’s team, he denied that Flacco is a backup at this point in his career, saying “he’s a starting quarterback in this league”. |
“Flacco might be in Jacksonville if he wants to win another Super Bowl”, he said. I don’t know about that—and if the Jaguars do want to trade for him, then they had better put some talent around him, which the Ravens often failed to do—but I think it’s fair to say there are starters out there right now who are worse. |
NEW YORK – Allowing Wal-Mart open a store here would be akin to letting in an economy-killing “Trojan Horse,” says this city’s Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and he has a study to prove it. |
The report, commissioned by the Public Advocate’s office and the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development, reviews more than 50 studies since 2002 on the effects, both positive and negative, of the mega-store’s entrance into communities. It includes research on how Wal-Mart has impacted Chicago, the... |
The corporation is starting a multi-million PR campaign aimed at changing the opinions of New Yorkers, who have previously fought off the retail giant’s overtures in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island on separate occasions. The campaign is to consist of television and radio spots, as well as direct mailings. |
Wal-Mart claims that it will create jobs, but the findings of the reports contradict this claim. |
The findings? Wal-Mart kills jobs, drives down wages, gobbles up tax dollars and exacerbates the problem of a dwindling “middle class,” leaving cities and towns more divided between super rich and poor. |
Opponents argue that Wal-Mart is using a cynical ploy: they want to generate support by opening their store in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, Brooklyn’s East New York, in order to prey upon the hopes of job-starved residents desperate for work. |
But while Wal-Mart would initially create some jobs, once this “Trojan horse” is inside the city’s gates, the job situation would be worse than previously. |
According to the study, Wal-Mart stores kill three jobs for every two they create. Overall retail sales stays about the same – in Chicago, retail sales went up only slightly in the new Wal-Mart location’s zip code, but went down in the areas surrounding it. If retail stays the same with Wal-Mart in the picture, the res... |
Local supermarkets and discount stores generally lose 10 to 40 percent of their business after Wal-Mart moves in. |
And while these local stores keep most of the money they earn in the community, $68 out of every $100, chain stores like Wal-Mart only leave $43 to circulate. Overall, the value the mega-store chain brings into a community is far offset by the values it destroys through displacement. California is estimated to have los... |
Less money in the local economy produces a downward pressure on jobs and, in a city like New York, any reduction in tax revenues exacerbates ongoing budget crises, meaning both reduction in public services and the possibility of public sector layoffs. |
Worse news still for New Yorkers looking for employment, any job they might find at Wal-Mart will likely leave them in poverty: annual pay averages out at $20,774, below the official poverty line for a family, and well below this city’s median income. |
Once again, New Yorkers are planning to fight Wal-Mart. The City Council will hold hearings, which will go on, even though Wal-Mart officials sent Council Speaker Christine Quinn a letter saying they would not attend. The labor movement and its allies are also in the planning stages to reactivate the coalition that kep... |
THE TREASURY has drawn up emergency funds to fight water shortages, blackouts and “loss of human life” under a No Deal Brexit, the Sun can reveal. |
Cabinet Ministers will today be sent a letter outlining how departments can access money at short notice to respond to “acute pressures”. |
Officials will be able to access the emergency cash in “events or situations” that threaten serious damage to human health such as “disruption of a supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel”. |
The guidance from Treasury Secretary Liz Truss and de-facto deputy PM David Lidington insists ‘urgent requirement’ funds will be released within a maximum of six days. |
And a Whitehall source said the threat of a Brexit wrecking amendment on No Deal from from rebels wouldn't affect the spending. |
It threatens a new ‘Project Fear’ with arch Eurosceptics who have accused Downing Street of trying to scare MPs into backing Theresa May’s Brexit deal. |
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