24th Annual IT Procurement Summit

For all IT Procurement Summit Registrations, please see our Summit page here.

IT Contracting Boot Camp

Get Informed. Leave Empowered.

Nashville, TN • June 3-4, 2019

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With a curriculum purposefully designed to provide those new to the profession, and veterans looking to get back to basics, with practical tips and tactics for negotiating a better deal with suppliers, this 9-hour interactive workshop will leave participants feeling informed, empowered, and excited about their future in technology procurement. Sessions are hands-on, collaborative, and facilitated by some of the industry’s most engaging professionals.

• Do your deals faster
• Save money on your taxpayers’ dollars
• Complete Compliance on Government Regulations
• Learn the benefits and risks of Cloud Services
• Prepare yourself to acquire Cloud Services
• Analyze/evaluate Cloud Services options
• Mitigate Cloud Service risks

Overview

If not already, you may soon be experiencing firsthand the storminess of Cloud service acquisition and implementation.

Government procurement of Cloud services can be very different from the corporate world. City ordinances, state constitutional requirements, mandates by the Department of Justice and the FBI, budget appropriation limitations, etc. Our interactive seminar will consist of discussions and group exercises that will, among other things, help you to:

• Learn Cloud contracting in a government context
• Re-examine Data protection needs from the state/local government viewpoint
• Focus on Cloud contracting issues unique to the government sector
• Review how statutes, regulations, etc. can improve government negotiation leverage
• Study wording developed to protect governmental customers of Cloud services

Join us and get the information, skills, and templates that will help you reach loftier heights negotiating and contracting among the Clouds in 2019.

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Statements of Work Done Right

Successfully Draft, Negotiate and Manage

Online Event • May 13 - 14, 2019

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Benefits

This highly interactive SOW workshop uses classroom discussion and group exercises to develop and improve skills in the following areas:

• Best-practice elements of great SOWs
• Getting input from stakeholders for SOW requirements
• Preventing vendors from using SOWs to modify master agreements
• Revising vendor-written fuzzy wording that might shift risk to the customer
• Licensing principles that maximize protections and money savings for customers
• Drafting SOW acceptance tests so customers get what they pay for
• Countering practices used by vendors to defeat customer protections in SOWs

Attendees will also come away with sample templates and checklists providing a solid foundation for negotiating, drafting and managing SOWs.

Overview

In Statements of Work (SOWs) we spend a lot of money while many products and services are bought. Oftentimes SOWs fail, causing delays, financial loss and other damages. Some SOWs written by a customer can be so unclear that acceptance testing is almost impossible. SOWs that are written by a vendor are often riddled with fuzzy words that shift all the risk to the customer. Additionally, vendors will use SOWs to modify key terms of a Master Agreement that inevitably put the customer at an increased disadvantage. Even customers with the best templates and negotiated SOWs still get burned by skilled vendors adept at managing the engagement and in turn, bypassing any written protections.

•      Are your SOWs written by the Vendors? 
•      Do Vendors use SCOPE creep and Change Orders
•      to charge more and bust your budgets?
•      Do you need to get control of your SOWs?

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The Finance in IT Procurement – Answering the Difficult Questions

Date: Wednesday – March 20, 2019

Time: Noon – 1:15 p.m. ET

Speaker: James Johnson, PHD

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Join us to get the answers to the procurement industries most challenging Finance questions. This interactive 1.25-hour topic, shared with your peers and the experts, will not only spend time understanding the problem but the solutions to these questions will be discussed in detail.

Why is this topic important to the everyday Procurement Professional? Because understanding some of these fringe topics will allow you interact more intelligently with your internal team (or stakeholders) and your increased knowledge will give you the upper hand when negotiating with prospective vendors. Don’t get bamboozled by the vendor!

We will be hearing from thought leaders in the field today, with in-depth experience on these financial IT procurement issues. Interaction from attendees will also shed significant light on these topics and more!

Certification: Practical Legalities in IT Procurement - Answering the Difficult Questions

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*This meeting was LIVE on 6/20/2018 and was very interactive! Purchase the recording above.

Join us to learn some of the procurement industries most challenging legal questions. Get additional legal insights and how they may effect some key negotiations with vendors and other general procurement activities. We will be hearing from thought leaders in the field today with in-depth experience on these legal procurement issues. Interaction from attendees will also shed significant light on these topics and more!

This event will be centered around the most difficult CTPS/CTPE certification exam questions, historically, we have observed over the years and will set you up to get certified. Not only will this session better prepare you for the exams, it is a learning session for all.

Certification: Contract Management - Answering the Difficult Questions

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*This virtual meeting was held on 4/10/2018 (purchase recording above).

Join us to learn some of the Procurement Industries most challenging questions regarding Contract Management. Get additional insights into these questions (below) and how they may effect some key negotiations with vendors and other general procurement activities. We will be hearing from a panel of the foremost thought leaders in the field. Interaction from attendees will also shed significant light on these topics and more!

This event was centered around the most difficult questions, historically, we have observed over the years and will set you up to get certified. Not only will this session better prepare you for the CTPS/CTPE exams, it is a learning session for all.

Certification: Sensible IT Procurement - Answering the Difficult Questions

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This virtual meeting was held on 5/10/2018 (purchase recording above).

This class reviewed some of the Procurement Industries most challenging questions. Get additional insights into these questions (below) and how they may effect some key negotiations with vendors and other general procurement activities. The session included a panel of the foremost thought leaders in the field. Interaction from attendees also shed significant light on these topics and more!

Certified Technology Procurement Executive (CTPE) and Specialist (CTPS)

If you are interested in Industry Certified the Certified Technology Procurement Executive (CTPE) or Specialist (CTPS) please click here to see our Certification Page.

Certification Benefits

Numerous benefits accrue as a result of acquiring CTPS and/or CTPE accreditation.

• Professional recognition. The designations CTPS and CTPE identify a level of achievement, which is recognized and respected by others in the procurement profession.
• Growth potential. The CTPS certification is the first step in establishing achievement in the field of procurement. It is a stepping stone to higher level achievement—CTPE accreditation, which awards advanced certification.

CAUCUS Certifications

• Identify you as possessing technical competency
• Recognize your commitment to professionalism
• Provide opportunity for self-improvement
• Offer you greater recognition on the job and among your peers
• Raise the professionalism of your company
• Identify your company as being committed to hiring qualified professionals

The CTPS & CTPE Study Guide

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Once you purchase this guide, a quality hard-copy will be mail to you the next business day.

About This Guide
The CTPS & CTPE study guide was developed in an effort to assist in preparing applicants for the CTPS & CTPE examinations. This study guide will help you become familiar with the structure, format and content of these examinations. Familiarizing yourself with these aspects of the test and CAUCUS™ recommended reading list will contribute to effective preparation for a successful test taking experience. Relying strictly on the study guide to prepare for the CTPS & CTPE examination will not guarantee a passing score. A pdf Study Guide already comes with the basic CTPE program purchase, however this item if for people that like hard-copy quality printed material.

This study guide covers the structure of the test in regard to examination format, passing criteria and retaking the examination if necessary. Test preparation techniques, such as process of elimination and going with your intuition, will also be covered in this study guide. Each section contains information such as definitions of key terms, sample questions, rapid reviews and additional resources for each module of the CTPS & CTPE examination.

On-Demand: Identifying and Defeating Vendor Ploys

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Want to be prepared the next time a vendor attempts to sway a deal to his favor? ICN’s explanation of popular vendor ploys will arm you for many of these tricks. Learn how to counteract the “I cannot give you a better price than…” ruse, understand how to deflect the “that is not the way we figured the deal” scheme, and thwart the “if we lower our fee, we can’t give you our best consultants” stunt.

Having ICN’s online presentation of Vendor’s Ploys in your arsenal gives you an advantage in negotiations to do better deals. We’ll show you how to neutralize some of the most common ploys, including:

• Booked Order
• Form Contract
• All Included Price
• Try It, You’ll Like it
• Who has the Keys to the Company Store
• We Don’t Need to Write That Down, You Can Trust Me
• We Can’t Do it for you Because We Would Be Setting A Precedent
• Unfortunately, I’ll Have to Get Any Changes Approved By Corporate
• and many more!

You’ll naturally feel greater confidence by being prepared to counter these common ploys. With negotiations in your favor, you’re sure to do better deals.

On-Demand: Managed Acquisition Process (MAP) Online Class

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Course contains two sessions

Designed to help you maximize your leverage throughout the procurement process, the Managed Acquisition Process™ (MAP™) is designed to help large and small companies, governments, and organizations of all sizes save resources and money. By focusing on best practices in a variety of areas (RFIs, RFPs, contract drafting, negotiations, contract management, and vendor management), you can begin improving your deals, increasing vendor performance, and reducing costs.

The procurement of goods and services is not an isolated event—it’s a process—and to do it well requires teamwork. Every stage of the process involves an opportunity for you to strengthen or weaken your bargaining position with your vendors. Whether you are directly or indirectly involved in the sourcing and procurement of goods and services, ICN will help you get the most out of your vendors—no matter what type of deal you’re doing.

Class consists of two online courseware sessions, one at 55:45 minutes and one at 71:29 minutes.

Online Meetings: Partly Cloudy with a Slight Chance of Contract Enforcement

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By Ruth Ginzberg CTPS, Senior IT Procurement Specialist, University of Wisconsin System Administration

Virtual Meeting date - January 16, 2019, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm on the Zoom.us platform.

3rd party vendors are involved in roughly 60% - 70% of all data breaches. If you are relying on your legal counsel, procurement department, or I.T. department to lock down the security risks in your cloud contracts, then you probably have security vulnerabilities you don't realize you have. This is true regardless of how good your cloud supplier’s technical security controls are. The contract itself and its administration can create vulnerabilities.

This goes beyond, "Do I own my own data?" or "Did we attach our company’s cloud contract rider?" Good cloud contracts require information security professionals' involvement in all aspects of their creation, administration, and enforcement. Managing 3rd party risk in the cloud requires the application of supply chain management risk reduction practices to the cyber sphere.

• Understand how unnecessary risks can be introduced during the contracting process
• Identify the most important security risks in existing contracts in your organization
• Develop strategies to transfer, mitigate, avoid or eliminate those risks

Online Meetings: Procurement Transformation - Eastman Chemical Company Case Study

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Online Meetings: The Tech in IT Procurement: Answering the Difficult Questions

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Virtual: Artificial Intelligence (AI) - Changing Your Procurement World!

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Online Meetings: Final Steps in Onboarding a Supplier for PO Issuance

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