Is it time to break up with a key supplier? Jinfo for content purchasing
Jinfo Blog

By Claire Laybats

Abstract

If you need a strategy for working with that troublesome supplier, you're not alone. Jinfo for content purchasing provides guidance, real-world tips and peer group support for coping with difficult supplier relationships and creating a more strategic foundation for portfolio management.

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In many content portfolios, there is one vendor or product that sticks out as, well, problematic. Sometimes more than one.

The problems stem from a combination of unique content, useful features, combined with challenging commercial terms. In other words, "Our users need it, but the costs are killing us."

Here's what we know from researching the industry and working with a wide range of information licensing professionals:

There is always a way to reframe the discussion - with vendors and with stakeholders - on the basis of value and impact. And in the end, there is always an alternative, if necessary.

This was the topic of lively discussion with a group of over a dozen information managers at a meeting we led in December in London. Although we gathered to talk about a specific vendor on everyone's minds, the ideas we shared could easily have applied to any of several other vendors we at Jinfo regularly receive questions about.

Among the steps we laid out for this group on the serious business of displacing a key supplier are these:

1. Understanding the real alternatives in the marketplace, beyond any obvious choices
   
2. Deep research on use cases
3. Pilot testing of alternatives, including user workflows
4. Analysing the value and impact of each alternative scenario.

Underscoring it all needs to be a deep commitment from senior leaders in an organisation, to empower the information team to take on this complex and time-consuming work, as well as an understanding that the end result may not save a single penny of the budget.

Get the support you need for managing challenging contracts

If there's a vendor on your mind as you read this, make sure to take advantage of what Jinfo offers to help you manage these challenging contracts:

In your Jinfo Subscription:

• Recent articles and reports enable you to add Supplier Relationship Management to your licensing approach; manage your portfolio as part of your strategy; apply our Centre of Excellence concepts to product evaluations; and turn your strategic objectives into acquisition action steps.

• Our next Community session of Jinfo for content purchasing will focus specifically on displacement - when to try it, what it takes, and what to expect.

Learn more about the benefits of a Jinfo Subscription if you do not yet have one.

Bring in Jinfo Consulting:

• Embed these principles in your portfolio management with the Jinfo Consulting workshop, "Holistic content portfolio management"

• Talk with us about bespoke consulting, to work on a specific product category or vendor in your portfolio
  
  
• Compare alternative products and suppliers.
  

Not every relationship will be easy, but there are ways to turn the troublesome ones into something you feel more control over. Break up or make up: Jinfo can help you figure it out.

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