IT Contracting Boot Camp
Get Informed. Leave Empowered.
Procurement Training Class
If you’re new to IT contracting or just want to get back to basics, then our IT Contracting Boot Camp is for you. With a curriculum purposefully designed to provide those new to the profession, and veterans looking to get back to basics, with practical tips and tactics for negotiating a better deal with suppliers, this 9-hour interactive workshop will leave participants feeling informed, empowered, and excited about their future in technology procurement. Sessions are hands-on, collaborative, and facilitated by some of the industry’s most engaging professionals.
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IT Contracting Boot Camp Participants will
- Understand what it takes to become a dealmaker and how to become one.
- Learn how one simple tool can radically transform the way you negotiate with suppliers.
- Gain insight into the fundamentals of drafting, reviewing, and negotiating technology agreements.
- Recognize hidden gotchas in contracts and learn strategies for avoiding them.
- Explore the pitfalls of cloud contracting and identify strategies for getting to “yes” with suppliers.
- Consider the habits of successful procurement professionals and how they can launch your career.
IT Contracting Boot Camp Sessions
- The Art of Becoming a Dealmaker
- Contracting Philosophy Tool
- Popular Vendor Ploys and How
to Counter Them - Fundamentals of Drafting, Reviewing, and Negotiating
- Four Ways Suppliers Limit Their Risk Contractually
- Cloud Contracting: Risks & Strategies
- 10 Habits of a Successful Procurement Analyst
Content
partial outline
Expanded Classroom Hours. Now Two Full Days!
Intro to Boot Camp/The Art of Becoming a Dealmaker
- Dealmaker Defined
- Satisfactory Conclusion
- How to Become a Dealmaker?
- Tip #1: Find Your Passion
- Tip #2: Always Show Integrity
- Tip #3: Learn to Use Leverage
- Rule #4: There’s No Room for Emotion
- Rule #5: Relationships Matter
- Questions?
Contracting Philosophy Tool
Does your company need the Contracting Philosophy Tool?
In this class, you will learn how to create and use a Contracting Philosophy Tool to:
- forge ALIGNMENT between you and your internal Stakeholders
- speed up the preparation and negotiation of IT procurement
- screen and qualify potential bidders
- increase negotiation leverage with potential bidders
- more effectively review and draft Customer contract documents
- wield maximum leverage in negotiations with potential vendors
Join us in this session to make IT procurement a lot more enjoyable!
Popular Vendor Ploys & How to Counter Them
- Protect Yourself
- Level the Playing Field
- Shorten Negotiations
- “Take it or Leave It”
- Tie-In
- “Limited Authority”
- Setting a Precedent
- “Oh By The Way”…Form Contract
- “I’ve Got Your Solution”
- “No need for Contract
- The 3 R’s
- The Vendor “Changeth”
- “Not in Contract, Not Part of the Deal”
- Never sign Form Agreement
- Vendor Excuses = Ploys
- Do Not “Argue” with Vendors’ Ploys
Fundamentals of Drafting, Reviewing & Negotiating
- Provide a systematic approach for reviewing a contract.
- Share a useful tool for explaining contractual risk to stakeholders.
- Provide real-time insights into how to mitigate risk in key areas.
Reviewing a Contract
- Analyze
- Educate
- Strategize
- Respond
Step#1: Analyze
- Review your supplier’s redline with an eye towards:
- Understanding the “why” behind each change
- Recognizing any larger themes driving the redline
- The mutual redline
- The lawyerly redline
- The random redline
- Insights can help you understand who you’re dealing with and how to appropriately push back.
Step#2: Educate
- Reaching a “satisfactory conclusion” requires you to build consensus amongst stakeholders.
- Here’s the rub— you’re the subject matter expert on contractual matters, not stakeholders
- Educated stakeholders by translating risk into business-friendly terms.
Step#3: Strategize
- Empower stakeholders by categorizing risk into a red, yellow, green framework.
- Involving stakeholders in discussion:
- Increases transparency into the process
- Makes them feel more involved
- Allows you to shine
Step#4: Respond
- After gaining stakeholder consensus, respond with a formal response to redline.
- Best practice to track all changes (including re-insertion of deleted language).
- Best practice to provide commentary so as to provide context.
Four Ways Suppliers Limit Their Risk Contractually
In this interactive breakout, we’ll dig into four key contract provisions full of risk: (1) Indemnification, (2) Limitation of Liability, (3) Termination, and (4) Remedies. By the end of this session, you’ll be better prepared to:
- recognize visible and invisible risk in contracts
- understand how one contract provision impacts another
- create risk mitigation strategies
- develop negotiation strategies for the referenced contract provisions
Cloud Contracting: Risks & Strategies
- Common Acronyms
- Types of Cloud(s)
- Cloud Benefits
- Cloud Gotchas
- Internal
- External
- Usage Risks
- Exit Risks
- Organizational Requirements
- Brokering
- Best Practices
- Boilerplate
- Service Level Agreements
- Maintenance and Support
- Contract Governance
- Business Case
- Total Cost of Ownership
- Understand & Evaluate Risks
- Study Cloud Models
- Evaluate the Suppliers
- Plan and Manage Transition
10 Habits of a Successful Procurement Analyst
In this session we will define and discuss10 basic practices that can make up a “tool kit” for the entry level procurement analyst. Using these will help you perform your job in a more professional, consistent and efficient manner. For many of these, the definition will include a template or tool to help you perform the practice. Here are the 10 we will cover:
- Use of contract templates
- Onboarding a new supplier account rep
- Setting rules of engagement
- Interviewing internal clients
- Marketing your services
- Use of a “short form” RFx
- Use of a scoring model
- Tracking key facts about key suppliers
- Using TCO to get the big picture and finding savings
- Administering a sourcing team
