Decision Support in Multi-Vendor Services Partner Negotiation

In contract negotiations with professional services partners, asymmetry of information combines with a set of subtle and conflicting objectives that are not commonly found in other areas of applied operations research, in public or private sectors. This creates decision problems that are quite interesting from a modeling and business perspective. An effective solution approach includes an optimization-based methodology and a means of effectively transmitting usable information between potential partners. Use of this model has resulted in substantial cost savings and team composition improvements for a major consulting organization.

By: Mary E. Helander; Hua Ni; Paul M. Thompson; Leanne K. Viera

Published in: RC24380 in 2007

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