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The NET+ Business, Procurement and Legal Advisory Committee (BPLAC) has sponsored a working group to focus on vendor management in higher education IT.  The working group will develop and document best practices to share with the community and Internet2's NET+ program.   

BPLAC has identified the following areas where vendor management activities are performed as foci for the Working Group:

• Operational (technical) - performance related.  
  • Management of day-to-day or operational interactions with vendors. Maintaining good relationships with vendor technical staff for operational activities, security requirements, and monitoring SLAs.
• Procurement Management - internal process and price related.  
  • Selecting vendors (RFPs/contracting), maintenance of vendor information, legal risk mitigation, payment relations (Procure-to-pay), tax information and documentation
• Strategic Relationship - relationship and value related.
  • Bigger picture relationship activities with vendors, shared vision of product(s) roadmap within the institution.  Quarterly business reviews, partnering activities to gain value from the contract and overall vendor relationship (wide-scale adoption initiatives, donations/development, internships, etc), planning budgeting/finance

If you see yourself in any of the focal areas and have a passion for improving vendor management practices in research and higher ed, we invite you to join the working group!  Please email netplus@internet.edu if you are interested in participating.