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A Fresh Start to a Stalled Implementation

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  • 24 Greenway Plaza Houston, TX 77046 Suite 1800
  • Tel: 713 893 9614

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The Vendor Support Expectation Gap

Many companies pay 15 to 20 percent of license cost every year for vendor support, yet still feel like they are largely on their own when issues hit production.

After more than two decades working with global customer organizations across ETRM, CTRM, and ERP platforms, I have seen the same pattern repeat itself. The issue is rarely that vendors are failing to deliver what they promise. The real challenge is the gap between what vendors define as support and what customers actually expect support to include.

Understanding that gap is the first step to closing it.

What vendor support typically includes

The exact definition varies slightly depending on whether the system is on-premise or cloud/SaaS, but vendor support generally focuses on maintaining the core product.

Core vendor support typically includes

• Ticket triage and review
• Defect and bug fixes
• Software patches
• Scheduled releases with enhancements and fixes
• Severity based response and resolution times defined in the contract

Cloud or SaaS deployments often add

• Uptime and availability commitments through SLAs

This model is designed to maintain the platform itself, not to operate or optimize it inside your business.

What vendor support usually does not include

Many day to day needs fall outside the scope of standard vendor support.

These commonly include:

• Customizations or configuration changes
• Business process redesign
• Training and onboarding
• Creation of new reports
• Operational troubleshooting tied to internal workflows

In most vendor contracts these services are considered professional services, not support.

What customers believe they are buying

In practice, most customers expect support to cover far more than the vendor model provides.

Typical expectations include:

• Fast acknowledgement and meaningful updates
• A support representative who understands the system end to end
• Direct access to engineers when production is impacted
• Quick fixes or clear workarounds
• Proactive guidance around known issues and root causes
• Severity aligned to business impact rather than vendor ticket queues
• Help with related needs such as reporting, training, or process questions

 

None of these expectations are unreasonable. They simply sit outside the traditional vendor support model.

How the mismatch shows up in daily operations

When the gap between expectations and support scope becomes visible, it tends to look familiar to anyone running a trading or risk system.

Common responses include:

• Delayed responses or slow escalation
• “We cannot reproduce the issue. Please provide more data.”
• “Working as designed.”
• “That request requires professional services.”
• “That is a reporting request. Services can help.”
• Tickets automatically closing after inactivity
• Requests to review documentation instead of receiving direct guidance

When production systems are involved, these issues can quickly translate into real operational risk. Teams can face downtime, settlement delays, delayed financial close, and potential audit exposure.

Options to close the support gap

Option 1: Internal support through a super-user model

Many companies rely on a power user or internal SME who understands the system well enough to support others.

This model typically looks like:

• A super user who understands the application end to end
• Support responsibilities layered on top of a primary role
• Additional effort required for reporting or configuration work
• Coverage across multiple applications
• A full employee cost including salary and overhead

This approach can work well in smaller environments, but it often stretches key people thin and becomes difficult to scale as the platform evolves.

Option 2: Third party application support

Another approach is to work with a specialized third party that focuses on supporting the specific platforms your organization uses.

A strong partner can help fill the operational gaps with services such as:

• Faster triage and validated reproduction steps
• Configuration and functional troubleshooting
• Reporting support and enhancements where appropriate
• Monitoring and database support
• Business process reviews and optimization
• Training and documentation
• Vendor liaison and escalation support

This model often provides more flexibility in cost and coverage, reduces the amount of time business users spend diagnosing issues, and can be structured as full time, part time, or on demand support.

Making the support model explicit

Regardless of which model an organization chooses, the most successful teams define their support model clearly.

That typically includes:

• Coverage hours
• SLAs and response expectations
• Severity definitions tied to business impact
• Clear scope boundaries
• Escalation paths across internal teams and vendors

Clarity here prevents many of the frustrations that show up later.

The role of specialized application support

At The Vessel Group, we often see clients caught in the middle of this support gap, especially in complex trading environments where operational reliability is critical.

Through our SupportZone practice, we provide specialized support for CTRM, ETRM, and related enterprise platforms. The focus is simple. Help organizations bridge the space between vendor software support and the operational needs of the business.

SupportZone combines deep application expertise with practical operational experience to help teams:

• Stabilize production environments
• Resolve issues faster
• Reduce dependency on internal super users
• Improve collaboration with software vendors
• Free internal teams to focus on trading, risk, and strategic initiatives

In short, it helps organizations get the level of support they thought they were buying in the first place.

 

Where have you seen the biggest support gap in your organization? Response time, expertise, or ownership?

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