Contractor Relationships
by Tom
It’s a good idea to establish and nurture a relationship with a reliable vendor, so there’s help available when you need it. Try them out on small projects and weed out the ones that don’t perform. Don’t wait until you’re slammed to decide you need to find a suitable vendor. Plan for the eventuality and have the necessary resources in place.
Many companies use vendors as a cost-management strategy. At Topaz, for example, we consider our independent contractors as part of our labor pool, and have been working with some of them for many years.
Some companies have taken to outsourcing almost all of their technical writing and instructional development work. Two of our accounts at Topaz use us as their primary development staff, and have done so for years. They maintain a skeleton in-house staff to manage the work, and they hedge their bets by giving other vendors a small percentage of their projects.
Tags: relations