Establishing Effective Relationships with Vendors: What Questions to Ask?

When managing your campus's data and technology infrastructure, you'll inevitably find yourself working with a number of vendors to address your institutional needs. With so many options in the industry, it's critical to choose partners who understand their role within the complex vendor ecosystem on your campus. We will provide both a campus CIO and technology provider perspective on what questions to ask potential vendors before entering into a partnership, detail lessons learned in managing multiple data collection and analysis systems, and examine how to effectively manage cross-campus relationships over several years.

Outcomes: Learn how to evaluate partnerships with external technology and data vendors * Identify strategies to start strong with new vendors and deepen relationships over time * Understand how to assess data needs across campus, ensuring a holistic data infrastructure