ISCAP Proceedings: Abstract Presentation
Teaching About IT Vendor Relationships
Ira Goldstein
Siena University
Abstract
In the Spring 2025 semester, we offered a new seminar course called Tech Talk For Tomorrow’s Managers. This was a non-technical course that provided students with a foundational understanding of key information technology (IT) concepts and their interaction with business organizations. It was taught using a flipped classroom format, and relied heavily on case studies. A number of topics were planned for the semester, ranging from IT jobs and roles to artificial intelligence to blockchain. The course was well received, and went as smoothly as could be expected for a first time offering. The one bump in the road was when we covered vendor relationships/partnerships. Our intent was to go over the importance of strategically managing relationships with external vendors for sustained business success; to look at performance monitoring through utilizing Key Performance Indicators; and defining clear vendor requirements (service level agreements). While we developed lecture materials for this topic, it was a bit dry. We were not able to find a suitable case study for this topic. We will lay out the material that we developed and will be looking for feedback on what people would like to see in a case study for this topic.