SVM And EA Professionals Must Work Together On Emerging Technology Evaluations

When it comes to evaluating emerging technologies for adoption, sourcing and vendor management (SVM) and enterprise architect (EA) professionals play complementary roles. EA professionals typically scan the market for new technologies, evaluate business and IT benefits, and plan for the implementation, scalability, and security of a technology. SVM professionals typically review contractual requirements, evaluate vendors, and ensure that their organizations are not exposed to unnecessary vendor-related risk. Yet despite their obvious complements, two recent Forrester surveys indicate that SVM and EA professionals have remarkably different perceptions of their own — and each other's — responsibilities in the evaluation process. SVM professionals can clarify their value in the process by defining their unique capabilities and working with EA colleagues to build formal evaluation approaches that account for different strengths in the emerging technology adoption process.