Review of XAAS: IT Procurement, Vendor Management and Cloud Services

This report provides a comprehensive review of XAAS (Anything as a Service) within the context of IT Procurement and Vendor Management. It explores the various types of services offered under the XAAS umbrella, including SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, and differentiates IaaS from traditional Data Centre Hosting. The report also delves into the maturity of XAAS, highlighting the increasing adoption of SaaS due to the maturity of IaaS. Key benefits of XAAS, such as agility, reduced support, and scalability, are discussed, along with potential pitfalls and cloud readiness assessment criteria. Furthermore, the document touches upon determinant factors in cloud sourcing decisions, the software ecosystem, and the importance of considering sustainability in IT procurement practices, contrasting them with purely economic practices. The report also discusses key procurement considerations when assessing cloud SaaS offerings and the inclusion of critical paths within any Services SOW. The document references several case studies and research papers to support its analysis.

Running head: IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
IT Procurement and Vendor Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
4 processes of 'Project Procurement Management
In order to establish and maintain effective relationship with vendors the Project
Procurement Management cycle with its 4 basic steps are very beneficial for any
business organisation. The four conjugative parts of Project Procurement Management
is The Planning Process, The selection Process, The Administration Process and The
Closing Process (Khanam et al. 2015).
In planning process, the core business organisation can develop initial planning
including risk identification and timeline for the procurement management. The planning
process has huge impact on the potential time and cost efficiency of the procurement
process. It highly influences the selection process of the procurement management. It
helps to identify the financial and budget scope of the project. The selection process
refers the comparing and selection process of the most suitable vendors considering the
optional advantages as well as disadvantages. The selection process also includes the
financial and operational negotiation process. Administration process allows the core
company to develop the centralized system while executing the planned procurement
project. Many operational tools like physical inspection, internal audits and reviews are
used in this phase of project management. The closing process refers the
documentation process just before the process of closing the executed operation with
expired business contract. Resolving disputes with internal negotiation is highly
important.
4 components of an 'enforceable contract';
Enforceable contract has four major components that allow to abide by the contract’s
terms and condition while having and recognised identity from courts where the court is
able to compel compliance. These four major parts for enforceable contract are Offer,
Acceptance, Mutual agreement and Consideration.
Offer is an initial phase of acts in an enforceable contract, which is made in exchange
for a return promise. The field and presentation of an offer must me legitimate while
prioritising the requirement of the business partner. Offering is the initial phase of the
contract that present the agreement issue to the other organisation (Ico.org.uk 2018). In
Acceptance, process both of the parities must be consternated about the validation of
the agreement. Acceptance initiates the further procedures of a contract. The process of
acceptance requires the authentic documentation from both parties that can clearly
testify the acceptance. Mutual agreement is the most essential phase of an enforceable
contract that required legitimist and adequate. For that both of the organisation have to
measure the possible consequences of this contract before signing the mutual
agreement. In consideration phase the duties and responsibilities of both organisation
are forecasted with regulatory policies, procedures, terms and condition under the
sincere supervision of the court.

2IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
3 necessary components of an offer;
A acceptable offer for a contract needs to have three necessary components that
validate the specification, realistic and achievable aspect of the offer. The relevancy of
the whole contract depends on these components of the offer namely Communicated,
Committed and Definite terms.
The party making the offer must communicate with the all stakeholders who could be
associated with the contract and the regulatory operation. In these participants the most
essential participants is the offeee, in other words the party for whom the offer has been
made. An appropriate communication can build the foundation of the overall contract.
During the offering both of the parties must ensure that the other one is committed
enough to the contract while keeping the rules, regulation, conditions in mind. A
committed offer can ensure the flawless enforcement and execution of the project
(iwillteachyoutoberich.com 2018). In any project management plan commitment is the
most essential factor that also has a huge impact even before the contract being made.
The offer must be definite and specific about their field operation and purpose of
initiation. The essential terms involving price, timings, manner of acceptance have to be
well defined in the offering phase of the contract.
The difference between independent and dependent demand;
The demand can influence the external factors like consumer relation, partnership and
internal factors like financial factors workforce management, production and policies
from low to high level of intervention. In accordance with this variable impact the
demands are divided into two types namely dependent demand and independent
demand.
Independent demands influences the internal factors like finance and revenue as well
as the external factors like supply chain management to some extent where the
influences are very low. However, for Dependent demand both internal and external
factors are influence by higher amplitude. Measuring the independent demand is much
easier than the dependent demand because of its less complex cardinality with the
other internal and external regulators. When it comes to the dependent demand, both
substitutes and complements of the offering products are considered. In contrast, for
independent demand either substitutes or complements are considered for
measurement (Cgi.com 2018). The changes of these regulatory factors cannot influence
the independent demand to considerable amount. However, these factors have high
impacts in the dependent demand. Therefore, independent is significantly vulnerable
than the dependent demand.
The hidden costs of outsourcing;
The outsourcing policy are utilised to minimise the operational cost as well as time.
However, some operational costs can have strong impact on the overall expenditure of
the business. Measuring the hidden costs of undertaken outsourcing policy is chief
essential financial factors that formulate the potential profitability.

3IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
Cost of management and coordination of contractors have a significant impact on the
overall expenditure due to procedural outsourcing method while managing the supply
chain with suitable strategy. The selection of supplier, trading routs and process
regulate the entire expense of the cost for management and coordination to have
efficient outsourcing. Managing the inventory and the inbound logistic operation has
high impact on the outsourcing investment policy (Al-Fatlawi and Kadry 2014). As an
example, when an organisation is outsourcing its cloud computing system, they should
consider the influences of the backup and reinstalling the data in the operating server.
Cost for inappropriate sales and operational planning is another major hidden cost of
outsourcing. While implementing the outsourcing method in production operation the
operating organisation should consider the risk factors regarding unexpected execution
failure, inappropriate time management and other factors. Any of these discrepancies
can cause high operational expenditure including procurement.
TQM relates to IT Procurement;
Total Quality Management (TQM) is the constant procedure of dropping or eliminating
errors in manufacturing, streamlining supply chain management while improving the
client experience by ensuring that workers have enough speed with their operation and
training. Therefore, the quality management needs high quality of data management
and synchronisation of record while keeping the system updated with the most advance
operation techniques. From the case study of reducing IT user downtime using TQM it
can be said that, this huge data collection as well as systematic operation with
synchronisation needs flexible and highly efficient process of execution and
maintenance (Jensen et al. 2009). In modern era, the phrase Information Technology
can offer the group of facilities where an organisation can systematically store, manage,
rewrite and implement a huge amount of date with extreme accuracy. Information
technology or IT allow an organisation to invest very less amount of time, energy and
money to operate various implementation and procurement while managing the entire
system with Total Quality Management approach. With advance database management
system with server based file handling, which is also known as, cloud computing, big
data and other technology an organisation can incorporate and execute their Total
Quality Management approach with appropriate strategy.
4 psychological factors that may affect bargaining;
The choice of the consumers for bargaining or for being involved in a contract varies as
per many psychological factors. The bargaining pattern is highly influenced by some
major psychological factors that also have social, cultural and economical aspect within
it. The four major psychological factors that affect the bargaining are Motivations,
Perceptions, Experience and believe with attitude.
The motivation is the basic psychological factors that influence the negotiation attitude
as well as bargaining power before a specific purchase. Maslow’s theory of motivation
suggests the hierarchical factors that influence the motivation of the customer to a
particular choice. Needs and Expectation are the two major components of this
motivation. Perception refers the person’s selective view that influences the

4IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
interpretation pattern. As it has been noticed in salary negotiation case study, the
human perception mainly depends on various unconscious factors, such as
environment, thought process and previous experiences. Experience refers the previous
experience of the customer on a specific type of product or service. As discussed earlier
the Expectation has high impact for building the perception. The experience also helps
to sharpen the accuracy for choosing the most appropriate option of purchase. Beliefs
with attitude greatly influence the purchasing decision that is regulated by the brand
reputation of the seller as well as the previous knowledge of the consumer about that
product (iwillteachyoutoberich.com 2018). From the case study of salary negotiation it
has been identified that, attitude of offering the product regulates the believe system of
the customer from conscious and unconsciously.
Conflict between sustainability IT procurement practices as compared
to pure economic practices;
The sustainability of IT procurement depends on the technological requirement,
strategic relationship with stakeholders, risk factors and service availability. Each of
these factors should work efficiently up to the threshold level to make the procurement
process sustainable enough. At the same time, the economic interventions required to
develop this sustainable It procurement has considerable amount of influence in
outbound cashflow. The pure economic practice emphasise the group of financial
activities that regulate the operational cashflow. The pure economic practice needs
enough financial management skill that ensures the lower outbound cashflow and
higher inbound cashflow. Therefore, the pure economic practices and sustainable IT
procurement work against each other to regulate the organisational expense and
profitability (Schneider and Sunyaev 2014). From the case study of Fixing payroll
problem it is clear that appropriate balance implementation of Database management
with TQM strategy can help to reduce this type of operational conflict within sustainable
IT procurement and economic practice.
Key procurement considerations when assessing cloud SaaS
offerings
In SaaS or Software as a Service agreement between core organisation and the vendor
company, the vendor company provides the infrastructure as well as the platform of the
cloud computing process. Therefore, in SaaS offering of cloud computing, the customer
as well as provider needs to understand the purpose and the potential role of the
engaging cloud computing system in the target environment. This understanding helps
to generate the initial chart of requirement to satisfy the needs and expectation of the
client company. At the same time, considering the Hardware as well as operating
system based agreement is essential (Schneider and Sunyaev 2014). Before the
implementation the pre organised database system and the file handling process
including the data flow diagram and cardinality should be investigate properly. The
potential acceptance of new server based data handling system within the
organisational operation is highly dependent on this inspection report. As per the case

5IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
study of Green IT, during the planning for SaaS service targeting the client one of the
most important factors is security. The Security refers both software and hardware
security and durability. The porting plan and the virtual data connectivity depend on the
initial decision for incorporating the security measure (iwillteachyoutoberich.com 2018).
On the other hand, for server security the ACL or Access Control List and the package
confirmation system for data transfer should be designed by prioritising the privacy and
layer of accessibility of the implementing Cloud based server.
The Critical Path should be included within any services SOW
The SOW or Statement of Work should include various critical paths even before the
development of the cloud computing system for the client company. Critical Path works
as the core credentials for the designing, developing and delivering system of any kind
of IT service providing. The functionality of the Cloud server development and delivery
system should follow a certain path or methods to avoid any kind of operational
anomalies. Therefore, during this process a accurate efficiency measurement procedure
can help to identify the major issues regarding the competency, licences agreement,
copyright protection, source code protection and others. This measurement method
need a set of well organised and effective attributes, those are also called constrains.
These constrains work as the multi-layered filter system within the Statement of work
that defines both the functionality and the integrity of the development and
implementation process. From the case study of Bear brewing strategic approach with
Total Quality management it is clear that the critical path with multiple synchronised
phases must be included in Statement of Work (iwillteachyoutoberich.com 2018). In this
case appropriate incorporation has increase the overall quality and profitability
significantly.

6IT PROCUREMENT AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT
References:
Al-Fatlawi, A.A.H. and Kadry, S., 2014. Green Cloud Computing: Data Center Case
Study. In Handbook of Research on Cloud Infrastructures for Big Data Analytics (pp.
508-533). IGI Global.
Cgi.com (2018). Emerging Trends Green IT. [online] Cgi.com. Available at:
http://www.cgi.com/files/pdf/cgi_whpr_84_emerging_trends_green_it_e.pdf [Accessed 8
Jun. 2018].
Ico.org.uk (2018). Contracts. [online] Ico.org.uk. Available at: https://ico.org.uk/for-
organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/accountability-and-
governance/contracts [Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
Isixsigma.com (2018). Brewing a Better Beer with TQM. [online] Isixsigma.com.
Available at: http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/
brewing-better-beer-tqm/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
Isixsigma.com (2018). Fixing Payroll Problems. [online] Isixsigma.com. Available at:
http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/fixing-payroll-
problems-tqm-case-study-human-resources/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
Isixsigma.com (2018). Reducing IT User Downtime. [online] Isixsigma.com. Available at:
http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/reducing-it-user-
downtime-using-tqm-case-study/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
iwillteachyoutoberich.com (2018). Negotiating a $16k raise. [online] Isixsigma.com.
Available at: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/salary-negotiation-earning-more/
[Accessed 8 Jun. 2018].
Jensen, M., Schwenk, J., Gruschka, N. and Iacono, L.L., 2009, September. On
technical security issues in cloud computing. In Cloud Computing, 2009. CLOUD'09.
IEEE International Conference on (pp. 109-116). IEEE.
Khanam, S., Siddiqui, J. and Talib, F., 2015. Modelling the TQM enablers and IT
resources in the ICT industry: an ISM-MICMAC approach. International Journal of
Information Systems and Management, 1(3), pp.195-218.
Schneider, S & Sunyaev, A., 2014. Determinant factors of cloud-sourcing decisions:
reflecting on the IT outsourcing literature in the era of cloud computing, Journal of
Information Technology, Mar 2016, Vol 31, Issue 1