The case for truth in vendor performance management

Knit.ai was founded by a team with years of experience building software products. We’ve seen the IT person who inadvertently deployed software without fully understanding its compatibility with other integrated solutions or unknowingly deployed a config file with incorrect settings that took down an environment. These unfortunate situations are what inspired us to explore vendor portals for documentation that could be synthesized into “Knowledge for IT”. Imagine a solution that understood how all technology worked together, powered by AI, that could help enterprises avoid simple mistakes. A knowledge database across all vendors to answer these questions.

The reality we found during that exploration: Vendor portals were difficult to access and nearly impossible to navigate.

We also discovered a wealth of data within the vendor support interactions. Those moments where the users engaged their vendors for help. The conversations that defined the day-to-day interactions and exposed the true experience customers were having.

This is the data that doesn’t exist in an enterprises vendor management system or their internal service desk. So Knit.ai was founded because when an end user has a problem with a technology service, they open a ticket with the internal service desk. The ticket gets triaged and, if IT can fix it internally, it’s usually resolved quickly.

But when the issue is more complex, it gets tagged “Waiting on Vendor.” At that point, your internal SME opens a case with the OEM in their portal — and from that moment on, the only person with visibility is that SME. The vendor now owns the case data, the metrics, and the outcome.

That black box around vendor support is the problem Knit.ai was created to solve.

Your company spends millions on technology products, services, and support. But do you know if you’re getting what you paid for?

You give performance reviews to your employees — why not hold your vendors to the same standard?

And that’s where Knit.ai comes in.

At a high level, Knit.ai is helping you take back visibility and leverage by:

• Consolidating vendor tickets into one place for real-time tracking across all vendors.
• Creating signals when a support case is going sideways — excessive back-and-forth, response violations, cases closed unresolved, or sensitive data being shared.
• Generating after-action reports that highlight support quality and areas for improvement — helping you and your vendors work better together.
• Delivering vendor performance reports you can use in QBRs, EBRs, and renewal discussions — moving from anecdotes to evidence.

Those four capabilities create value at two levels:

• Day-to-day — enabling front-line managers and SMEs to handle escalations faster and with more confidence.
• Strategic — empowering IT leaders and executives with hard data to use in renewals, escalations, and vendor negotiations.

By doing this, organizations are:

• Reducing the risk of project delays
• Improving vendor support responsiveness and accountability
• Shifting the dynamic at renewals and escalations by walking in with leverage

And importantly, all of this is possible with very little effort:

• Configuring mail flow rules takes only a few hours and immediately starts populating a real-time ticket list.
• Filling in historical data only takes about 30 minutes.
• Realizing benefits can be as fast as your next renewal or escalation conversation.