Vendor Expectations and Guidelines for
Working
with the Systems Department at State Farm®
State Farm's focus is on being our customers' first and best choice in the products and services we provide. This focus requires us to strive to remain efficient and productive.
With this in mind, the State Farm Systems Department, which is responsible for information technology, developed the following guidelines which we hope will help you better understand our focus and drive. These guidelines will also help you prepare to work with State Farm -- making our time together more efficient and productive.
As a vendor to State Farm Systems, we expect you to:
- Work with the appropriate State Farm contacts to:
- Understand our business environment, strategies, and needs.
- Understand our technical environment and appropriately convey it to the rest of your organization.
- Be familiar with relevant technologies and discuss with the appropriate State Farm contacts how your products and services apply to our environment and how they might improve our applications' time to market.
- Work with State Farm’s Purchasing Division on procurement and contract-related activities. Purchasing will manage the procurement process, which includes issuing Requests for Proposals, contracting for the required products and services, securing pricing, verifying invoice accuracy, and initiating payments. You are expected to help resolve any issues such as billing errors, equipment damaged in transit, and other contract compliance issues.
- Act with honesty and integrity and present a consistent message to all contacts within State Farm.
- Work directly with other vendors when multiple vendors are involved on a program, project, or effort. State Farm expects cooperation beyond the one-on-one, vendor to State Farm relationship. Vendors should cooperate amongst themselves and with State Farm to achieve success. State Farm can and will facilitate communication and coordination at many levels among participants.
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Expectations and Guidelines for Meetings and Product Presentations
- Be prepared, and minimize the use of State Farm's time
- Keep presentation brief
- Provide an agenda
- Have some knowledge of State Farm
- Provide a minimal amount of general company information about your company such as history and financial facts
- Minimize discussion of products State Farm has not expressed an interest in
- Advise us of any audio-visual requirements in advance
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Policies and Requirements
- A signed non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is required before any meeting with State Farm or any discussion of confidential information. You will receive the NDA from the appropriate State Farm associate in the Purchasing Division.
- Our policy prohibits installation of hardware or software on State Farm systems without appropriate usage agreements in place.
- During your visit to State Farm Insurance Companies®, you may encounter confidential State Farm business information. Whether it is in the form of business, procedural, or trade secret information, you may not disclose this information to third parties without the written consent of State Farm Insurance®.
- Company policy states that employees and members of their families may not accept gifts, entertainment, or gratuities that might influence or reasonably be deemed by others to influence. Therefore, do not offer gifts, entertainment, or gratuities. Employees will pay their fair share of expenses incurred for mutually beneficial meetings and trips that are required in the course of business and in the interest of buyer/supplier relations. Suppliers are expected to abide by these policies.
- Our Company policy advises our employees not to participate in external surveys. Information regarding State Farm's Information Technology (IT) infrastructure is considered proprietary. State Farm recognizes that some select surveys may be acceptable; however, participation in them requires State Farm management approval.
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Confidentiality Policy
- We expect your company to adhere to the confidentiality provisions of the NDA. Specifically, your acceptance of our request for your services and your performance of those services is expressly conditioned on and subject to your agreement that:
- You will not use customer information we provide for any purpose other than the specific services we are asking you to perform.
- You will disclose or share customer information we provide only to the extent necessary to accomplish the services that we request.
- In the course of your business dealings with State Farm, you may learn of or have access to certain confidential, patent, copyright, business, trade secret, proprietary, or other like information or products of State Farm or of State Farm's other vendors, consultants, suppliers, or customers. You agree to keep all such information strictly confidential.
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Ongoing Technical and Product Support
- Should State Farm purchase your products, we expect you to provide ongoing, quality product support. This includes advance notification of product rollover and assistance in transitioning to new technology.
- We expect you to represent State Farm’s interests within your company. When appropriate, your Research and Development (R&D) area should take State Farm’s needs into account. In some cases, we expect access to R&D staff efforts, executives, and labs.
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Assessment Considerations
- We look to our vendors and service providers to focus on quality products, competitive prices, and added value through service offerings that may be valuable to State Farm.
- We will assess your capabilities in the following areas as we identify our business needs and strategies:
- Business practices: Trustworthiness, financial strength, and reputation in the industry and business community
- Ability to deliver solutions: Ability to accurately identify State Farm requirements and provide comprehensive solutions, including value-added services as needed
- Product quality: Performance as advertised, ease of use, integration into current environment, reliability, interoperability characteristics, scalability, compatibility with prior generation
- Overall cost: Best price, return on investment, competitiveness, value afforded
- Distribution channels: Ability to provide products to meet State Farm delivery schedules
- Future direction: Long-term viability, ratio of profit to R&D
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This information has been provided to give you a general
idea of the Systems Department’s expectations and requirements.
It does not supersede any written agreements you may have with State Farm. To discuss products or services you would like the Systems Department to consider, call State Farm’s Purchasing Division at 309-766-2342.
Direct requests for other additional information or questions to:
Systems Contracts Team
State Farm Insurance
3 State Farm Plaza South K-1
Bloomington, IL 61791-0001
Phone: (309) 766-6961
Fax: (309) 763-2191
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