Managing Software Vendor Relationships

I found this article on Moodle as it relates to several companies managing software vendor relationships:

http://www.cio.com/article/627382/Users_List_What_s_Wrong_with_Software_Vendors?source=rss_news


Many large companies outsource their software needs because it doesn't make sense to spend that money on what is not their core competency.  What arises however are problems related to updates, costs, lack of transparency, and lack of speed on updates to stay current with laws and regulations, perhaps mostly because these software companies don't operate in the same industry as most of their clients.  The CIO's in this article have a hard time managing this relationship and are coming together to propose a set of standards to be followed by software vendors, which could help reduce inefficiencies and enhance productivity for these managers worldwide. 

This brings attention to the always challenging question....do we outsource or not?  And if we do, we better make sure that we are prepared to manage that relationship so we can keep our company as productive as possible while mitigating the risk.  We want to achieve cost-efficiency but not in terms of losing the effectiveness that outsourcing is set to produce in the first place.