4 Key Questions to Ask a Cloud Service Management Vendor

When evaluating SaaS ITSM vendors, companies can get bogged down in feature-to-feature comparison, overall technical capabilities, and length of implementation. These criteria are vital to your success but it’s easy to lose focus on what really makes a cloud ITSM vendor – which is arguably one of the most important vendor partnerships in the enterprise today ­– the right long-term partner for your organization.

In the early stages of your evaluations, you must narrow down your list of vendors to identify the ones that have the right qualities for supporting your organization’s current needs and future growth. I have outlined four key questions – outside of software features – that will allow you to stay focused on what’s most important when partnering with a cloud service management vendor. These questions encompass broader, more business-oriented aspects of what the vendor provides to its customers and they should be asked at the forefront of your search.

1. Is this vendor PROVEN in the market? 

Years of experience in the ITSM SaaS delivery space with a broad global customer base is a leading indicator of a proven vendor. Experienced vendors will dedicate support resources to their cloud delivery with the right mix of ITSM, security, and infrastructure experience and demonstrate commitment to continuous improvement in technology and processes.

2. Is this vendor’s technology and resources SCALABLE to support large, global enterprises? 

You should be looking at cloud service management solutions that can scale to support any size organization and have the capacity to support any region of the world. A key indicator of a scalable vendor is partnerships with industry-leading IaaS partners and distributed datacenter environments to achieve optimal availability and redundancy.

3. What does this vendor do to make their offering truly SECURE? 

Seek a vendor who is committed and invests in tools to enhance system monitoring capabilities, such as big data analytics. They should have the highest standards of certification around internal policies and procedures, like SSAE-16.

4. How TRANSPARENT is this vendor when it comes to their availability history and system KPIs? 

Many vendors are wary of being transparent of their SaaS delivery statistics, so it’s important to find a vendor that can provide complete visibility for customers into availability KPIs, backup details and upgrade information. They should be confident in their solutions, staff, and policies and provide 24/7 access to support resources and system data.

A vendor with market experience in a sea of start-ups, a scalable and secure solution that can support the largest companies around the globe, and a dedication to transparent customer communication are foundational characteristics that you can build your evaluations on. Once you narrow down your finalists based on these criteria, you can start to get into the qualities that are only impactful if you have validated the list above first.

In our upcoming webinar on August 9th, Not all Cloud ITSM Vendors are Created Equal, you will learn what exactly to look for when asking these questions during cloud service management vendor evaluations. We will touch on each point and provide real-life examples of what standards you can hold your prospective vendors, and you will walk away with a valuable checklist!