Do you replace our MSP?
You keep the MSP if it works. We govern it: scope, service levels, renewals and escalation. If the MSP is the problem, we say so, with evidence, and manage the change properly.
One of the ten dimensions
AI-ready vendor and MSP management. One owner above it all.
Every contract has an owner. Every AI feature on a renewal is a decision you made on purpose.
You keep the MSP if it works. We govern it: scope, service levels, renewals and escalation, held by a named Head of IT who sits on your side of the table.
Vendor management is one dimension of The Technology Framework. Owned through the seat, or on its own.
01
What owning it looks like
The MSP, the contracts, who does what: governedThe MSP, the contracts, who does what: governed.
Most firms of 50-200 people pay an MSP, a Microsoft partner, a telecoms provider and a shelf of software vendors. Nobody sits above them, and now every one of them is selling AI. AI fails on estates where the vendor layer is ungoverned. This dimension puts one owner there.
- One vendor map. Every supplier, what they do, what it costs, when it renews.
- A renewal calendar. Contracts renew because you chose to renew them, with time to negotiate before the date arrives.
- MSP governance. Scope written down. Service levels measured against the contract. A review rhythm that actually happens.
- Escalation with an owner. When something breaks between two suppliers, one person is accountable for the answer.
- Board paper. A supplier view the board can read, with the decisions that have been waiting for an owner.
Who does what
The line gets drawn, in writing
The boundary between the MSP, internal staff and every other supplier is agreed and written down. Work stops falling between the gaps, and the invoice matches the scope.
If a supplier is the problem, we say so, with evidence. If a change is needed, we run the selection and the handover properly: requirements, shortlist, evaluation, transition.
We implement and govern. We do not resell, and we do not run the helpdesk. The MSP keeps the queue. We own the answers above it.
02
AI in vendor management
What we assess, govern and put in writingEvery vendor now sells an AI feature. Someone who can tell a capability from an invoice.
AI arrives in most firms through the supplier list, quietly. The MSP adds an AI tier. The document system announces a copilot. The renewal quote grows a new line, and nobody has read the terms behind it. Making the vendor estate AI-ready means putting all of that under governance.
- The AI column on the vendor map. Which suppliers have AI features switched on, what they cost, and what they actually do. Assessed, in writing.
- Contract terms, read. Where your data goes when a vendor adds AI: processing terms, sub-processors, and whether your documents train someone else's model.
- Renewal questions with teeth. Every AI line on a quote answers three questions before it renews: what it does, what it costs, who owns it.
- A route for new AI tools. When a team wants an AI product, there is a way to say yes safely, and a written reason when the answer is no.
- Suppliers inside the same rules. The AI tooling your MSP and vendors use on your estate sits under the same governance as everything else they run.
Honest work
Governance, not a product pitch
We do not sell AI features, and we do not resell anyone else's. The work is knowing what is in the estate, what it costs, and what it is allowed to touch.
When a vendor's AI feature is genuinely useful, the firm switches it on with confidence. When it is an invoice wearing a capability, the firm says no, with evidence.
The AI dimension itself, strategy through to production, has its own page in the framework. Vendor AI spend rolls up into the cost dimension: one bill somebody reads.
03
How it is bought
A dimension of the framework, never a menu item
Through the seat
Most firms own this through the fractional Head of IT
The seat covers all ten dimensions of the framework, vendor management among them. One or two days a week, in the room, governing the MSP and every contract around it.
From £4,750 a monthfor one day a week
On its own
Or owned as a single dimension
Some firms need one thing fixed first: the vendor estate. Any single dimension can be owned on its own, priced in conversation.
See where vendor management sits in the full framework map, alongside the other nine dimensions.
04
How it runs
Diagnose. Deliver. Decide.Diagnose
First we listen. We sit with the people who actually run the estate: the MSP, finance, operations, whoever holds the contracts.
Deliver
Visible progress in weeks, with a board-readable outcome. For this dimension, often the vendor map, the renewal calendar and the first proper MSP review.
Decide
It's your call. Keep the seat filled at one or two days a week, or keep the map, the calendar and the review rhythm and run it yourselves. Either way the place is stronger.
First we listen. Then visible progress, scoped at diagnose. Then it's your call.
The same rhythm as how we work across every dimension of the framework.
05
FAQs
The questions boards actually askWhat does MSP governance actually involve?
A written scope of who does what. Service levels measured against the contract. A review rhythm that actually happens. A renewal calendar with time to negotiate. Escalations that land with a named owner.
Is this only about the MSP?
No. The Microsoft partner, the telecoms provider, the software vendors, the cyber suppliers: every contract with a renewal date belongs on one map, with one owner above it.
Can you run an MSP selection or a switch?
Yes. Requirements, shortlist, evaluation, transition. We sit on your side of the table, and the recommendation is written down so the board can see how the decision was made.
A vendor has switched on an AI feature. What now?
Ask what it does, what it costs and where the data goes, in writing. If the answers hold up, it goes on the vendor map with an owner. If they do not, it comes off at renewal.
How is vendor management priced?
It is a dimension of the framework, never a menu item. Most firms own it through the fractional Head of IT seat, from £4,750 a month. It can also be owned on its own, priced in conversation.
Who does the work?
A named senior. The person in the conversation is the person who reads the contracts, sits in the MSP reviews and writes the board paper.
06
Start the conversation
Bring the thing that hurtsStart the conversation.
The first conversation costs nothing and changes what happens next. Bring the thing that hurts, or the thing you want to build.
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