Technology Vendor & Contract Review Checklist
A technology proposal can look competitive while leaving critical labor, licenses, migration, support, renewal, data, security, and exit responsibilities unclear. Use this checklist before approving a major vendor or contract.
Scope and responsibilities
Confirm what the vendor is—and is not—delivering.
- Are business requirements, technical deliverables, quantities, locations, integrations, dependencies, assumptions, and exclusions explicit?
- Who owns design, configuration, migration, purchasing, shipping, installation, testing, training, documentation, support, and final acceptance?
- Are cabling, travel, after-hours work, freight, taxes, permits, licensing, hardware, accessories, and project management included?
- What client labor, access, data, decisions, facilities work, or third-party participation is assumed?
- How are changes quoted, approved, scheduled, documented, and billed?
Commercial and contract review
Model the full term rather than the first invoice.
- What is one-time, recurring, usage-based, variable, optional, or pass-through?
- How do user, device, site, storage, support, or consumption changes affect cost?
- What are the term, auto-renewal, notice period, price-increase, minimum, and early-termination provisions?
- Who owns purchased or leased equipment, configurations, data, numbers, domains, tenant access, and documentation?
- What transition assistance, export, credential transfer, data return, equipment return, and deletion occur at exit?
- Are implementation milestones tied to payment and objective acceptance criteria?
Service, security, and operational fit
A contract must match how the business will use the service.
- What support hours, severity definitions, response targets, escalation paths, and exclusions apply?
- Which systems, alerts, backups, networks, users, devices, and vendors are actually monitored or managed?
- What administrative access, role separation, logs, security controls, insurance, incident notice, and subcontractors apply?
- What continuity, outage, backup, recovery, portability, and vendor-failure options exist?
- Can internal staff or another provider administer the environment without vendor dependency?
- Are documentation, training, runbooks, inventory, diagrams, and knowledge transfer required deliverables?
Decision and renewal governance
Keep the decision visible after signature.
- Document the selected option, alternatives, rationale, risks, assumptions, owner, budget, and expected value.
- Create renewal, notice, true-up, license, certificate, warranty, and lifecycle calendar entries.
- Review vendor performance, service data, incidents, support quality, security posture, and actual utilization.
- Revalidate business need, total cost, overlap, alternatives, and exit readiness before renewal.
Review the proposal before the commitment.
Kennedy IT Solutions can compare quotes, review scope and commercials, support negotiation, or manage a broader technology selection.