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Considerations in partnering with a vendor to develop a system

This has not been a very common model in the past, but is increasingly popular in today's higher education information systems climate. One reason for this is that many vendors who are watching their older mainframe applications lose their appeal are feeling severe time and resource pressure as they try to replace them with client/server or networked computing models. For example, Indiana University recently completed the implementation of a financial system developed in partnership with a vendor to meet specific client/server needs that could not be met by host-based solutions. There are a couple of major issues related to this kind of solution.

• Need to share a common goal
  The likelihood of success is increased when the vendor feels that the fruit of the partnership is a product that may be sold to other institutions. Otherwise, the partnership is really just a service-for-fee arrangement. This shared-goals concept, however, brings with it a different set of challenges. Both parties must be amenable to some compromise on functional design. The vendor will undoubtedly be striving for the most flexible (generic) solution, while the institution will want to have its unique needs met. As long as there is trust and openmindedness, this type of partnership can be very successful.

• More complicated project management
  Apart from the obvious personality-related problems that might accompany this kind of partnership, there is the more realistic challenge of project management logistics. If staff members from each side of the partnership are not co-located somewhere, the coordination logistics are likely to be daunting. A preferred model is to have one partner send staff to the other's location for the duration of the project.

  For example, Indiana sent three IT developers to the development site of its partner for 18 months. They were set up in apartments, with all utilities paid, and flown home to the University once a month. This seemingly extravagant outlay actually saved an inordinate amount of both out-of-pocket expenses and meeting time during the project. The two senior managers of the finance organization also flew out on alternate weeks to the vendor's site for the duration of the project to provide project management skills and to make on-the-spot decisions on both technical and functional issues. Perhaps the most important advantage of this latter arrangement was to enable the University to retain an active leadership role in the project's management.

  Obviously the vendor could choose to send staff to the campus for the project duration, but usually that will be a more costly choice since the vendor would then be charging consultant fees plus travel expenses, and the latter are not under the institution's control. Both partners might want to consider establishing some ground rules about recruitment of each other's staff during the project, a practice that could have very negative consequences for the project.

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