Survey finds 48% of IT pros spend weeks negotiating vendor contracts

Ivanti recently announced findings of a new survey focused on IT challenges and the benefits of taking a unified approach to IT management.

The data shows that vendor management and contract negotiation are particularly time-consuming endeavors for IT pros, keeping them from focusing on unified IT initiatives. Of the 1,300 respondents surveyed, 48% claim they can spend weeks to months renegotiating vendor contracts each year.

IT organizations are known for having extensive vendor lists. In fact, 50% of IT pros surveyed report working with upward of 11 vendors at a time, while 20% work with 5-7 vendors and another 16% work with 8-10 vendors at a time.

Naturally, the number of vendors IT pros work with impacts the time it takes to negotiate contracts. Of those surveyed, only 19% said they spend just hours negotiating vendor contracts, while a whopping 35% said they spend weeks negotiating vendor contracts each year.

Contract negotiations aren’t the only tasks taking up time for IT pros. Operations reports have also proven themselves to be quite time-consuming. While 52% spend hours producing IT operations reports, 22% of IT pros surveyed said they spend days producing these reports.

IT professionals included in the survey agree there is a way to save time and money, and that’s through a unified experience across endpoint, security and enterprise service management. Of the 1,300 surveyed, 59% of IT professionals noted that unified IT systems result in consistent and aligned processes across IT departments. Further, 58% shared that unified systems also led to cost savings.

Duane Newman, vice president, product management at Ivanti, shared his thoughts on the survey’s findings, noting that, "Conflicting initiatives are competing for IT budgets and complicating visibility and reporting processes. This is making it challenging to achieve IT unification."

"Compounding the situation is the time IT organizations spend on vendor and contract management. However, by taking a unified approach to the priorities of security, issue resolution, and reporting, IT organizations will likely find that they are better able to achieve their highest priorities without added cost or effort," he concluded.