Re: working with IT Services firms

Here's one from the other side. I don't like it but all of our vendors
are on 90 terms. We're in a money crunch. I had a software company call
me wanting to know when they'll get paid. So I stayed on the phone with
them and we talked to the A/P clerk. She referred me to her boss the
accounting controller. Basically it comes down to this - the gent in
charge of materials management says who gets paid first. I'm guessing
that getting raw materials to the shop floor is taking priority over
software bills.

I was in a meeting with the CEO. He comes from a big company background
and is into reducing vendor count because he feels that being a bigger
fish gives you more push with them. He's starting to realize that it only
works if you pay them too. Well, not paying them does help to reduce
vendor count.

We used to pay all of our vendors within about 10 days. That was before a
few buy-outs and being leveraged to the hilt. Credit's tightening up. Now
some of our major customers have put us on 90 day terms and management
expects our vendors to accept the same.

I too would like to know the name of that firm. I wonder if the end
customer may find that the firm is doing their software maintenance with
IBM and when they go to call in a hardware issue only to find out that
they're maintenance is behind and they can't get repair except on T & M
with terms being American Express.

Our department tried playing the game by paying some bills with our
company Am Ex and then turning that in. That process got halted.

Rob Berendt