CMMI® for Acquisition, Version 1.2 CMMI-ACQ, V1.2

Now more than ever, organizations are increasingly becoming acquirers4 of needed capabilities by obtaining products and services from suppliers and developing less and less of these capabilities in- house. The intent of this widely adopted business strategy is to improve an organization’s operational efficiencies by leveraging suppliers’ capabilities to deliver quality solutions rapidly, at lower cost, and with the most appropriate technology.
Acquisition of needed capabilities is challenging because acquirers must take overall accountability for satisfying the user of the needed capability while allowing the supplier to perform the tasks necessary to develop and provide the solution.
According to recent studies, 20 to 25 percent of large information technology (IT) acquisition projects fail within two years and 50 percent fail within five years. Mismanagement, the inability to articulate customer needs, poor requirements definition, inadequate supplier selection and contracting processes, insufficient technology selection procedures, and uncontrolled requirements changes are factors that contribute to project failure. Responsibility is shared by both the supplier and the acquirer. The majority of project failures could be avoided if the acquirer learned how to properly prepare for, engage with, and manage suppliers.
In addition to these challenges, an overall key to a successful acquirer- supplier relationship is communication.