The Technology Procurement Handbook (2020)

 

The Technology Procurement Handbook poster with acover page

The Technology Procurement Handbook for Industry 4.0 Professionals

In the era of Industry 4.0, technology procurement no longer sources commodities. 
Instead, it delivers value-generating digital services working in cross-functional teams, transforming business requirements into technically and commercially purposeful solutions.
This is when "The Technology Procurement Handbook," published by Kogan Page, becomes handy. It will help comprehend complex architectures at a conceptual level, analyze core business requirements, and understand the digital service lifecycle. 
Then it will translate all of that into a simple yet valuable costing model and an efficient sourcing strategy, sound negotiation plan, and fit-for-purpose contract.

Key topics of "The Technology Procurement Handbook":

  • Define macro-drivers of IT transformation that changed the approach to technology procurement from commodity sourcing to delivering value-generating digital services.
  • Explain critical attributes of the Bimodal IT and Adaptive Sourcing models.
  • Identify the main pillars of technology procurement – ITIL Service Lifecycle, Project Management cycle, strategic sourcing process – and map them against each other to understand each critical stakeholder's viewpoint.
  • Develop the detailed TCO model of a digital service.
  • Get the basics of cloud computing technologies and business models, software development, licensing, support, and maintenance.
  • Assess the multitude of IT service fulfillment scenarios, resource challenges, and options for selecting technology services.
  • Provide a generic overview of the cost structure of a digital project.
  • Review the toolkit of procurement value levers and their practical applications.
  • Learn the demand management concept.
  • Construct a comprehensive sourcing strategy.
  • Prepare the negotiation plan involving value levers and TCO elements.
  • Understand the specifics of technology contracting.
  • Suggest practical views on agile and lean procurement.
  • Support all of the above with examples of actual sourcing projects and contracts.

The book resides on four pillars of technology procurement - ITIL Service Lifecycle, PMI Project Management workflow, 7-step Strategic Sourcing process, and TCO - to provide a complex view of interdependencies between procurement, IT, PMO, and Finance in the process of technology service delivery.

The key differentiator of "The Technology Procurement Handbook" is that a practitioner created it to not only deliver generic statements and theoretical assumptions. 

It is based on live examples. Personal experiences include case studies, extensive practical advice (checklists, schemes, workflows), and some custom models and tools that cannot be found elsewhere. 

The target audience of "The Technology Procurement Handbook." 

Procurement professionals will benefit from a holistic view of the strategic sourcing process for complex technical solutions. 

Business users will understand what happens in the backend of digital service delivery. 

IT people will learn to co-pilot the procurement process, which they usually need help to navigate. 

Finance managers will crack on the end-to-end costing model tied to a service lifecycle, project milestones and deliverables, and procurement artifacts. 

"The Technology Procurement Handbook" was created for those who do not feel they have achieved their best. 

There is so much more to learn and embrace, and the beauty of our job is that it always welcomes new ideas and actions; it is not stubborn or rigorous. 

Eventually, any problem can be solved from different angles with various tools and cooperation with multiple partners and stakeholders. 

‘Rather, the absence of direction should be interpreted as permitting the team to innovate and use sound business judgment that is otherwise consistent with the law and within the limits of their authority. Accordingly, contracting officers should take the lead in encouraging business process innova­tions and ensuring that business decisions are sound’ (Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), 2015).





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