A recent survey by ProcureCon found “the state of collaboration between the CIO and CPO has continued to evolve in response to developing external pressure…today’s business conditions call for a strategic alliance between them.”

That is easier said than done, especially when IT stakeholders may be reluctant to inspect pockets of spend that haven’t been touched for years. One such area is software vendor support. In our experience, most IT teams admit that the cost-to-value ratio of software vendor support is terrible, particularly when it comes to vendor support of ERP systems, but they don’t feel they have options.

The responsibility falls on the shoulders of the CPO and their teams to ask the tough questions:

• Do we renew software maintenance contracts despite receiving what we feel is sub-par support or low-value updates from ERP vendors?
• Are we paying vendors each year without understanding the fully-loaded cost of software support and maintenance?
• Does our software support budget rob us of dollars we could apply to more strategic parts of our business?
• Do we make decisions based on fear of potential adverse responses or consequences from the vendor?

If you answered “yes” to any of those, find out how GE Software and IT Sourcing Leader Aashish Talwar, and Head of Indirect Procurement for Ace Hardware, Fraz Baig build strategic alliances between the CPO and IT by asking the questions that may help to unlock funding to power their business-driven ERP roadmaps.