The State of Vendor Portfolio Management

Vendor portfolio managers face the greatest challenge Outsell has seen over the 10 years that we have been observing the information management landscape and collecting benchmark and best practice data. We have watched the full-service library model shift over recent years to focus on content procurement and management, and we explicitly set out to uncover a deeper understanding of vendor portfolio management issues and practices in our latest annual Information Management Benchmark study. A total of 591 corporate, government, healthcare, and education library/information center and vendor portfolio information managers responded to the 2009 study. This report specifically examines vendor portfolio management issues and practices. We will publish a separate report, “Information Management Benchmark: 2009 State of the Function,” later this year covering benchmarks and best practices in general among libraries and information centers. This report contains:

- Analysis of VPM changes and trends since 2005;
- A look at the impact of those changes and trends on the information industry;
- Essential comparative operating metrics for those in the VPM function;
- Implications for information managers, particularly vendor portfolio managers.