Technology Transactions & Outsourcing

We are continually refining and improving our best-practice approach to IT transactions and counseling based on our experience with thousands of transactions for different businesses and industries. Our mission is to add value to your transaction. We do this by using our experiences to develop efficient and practical approaches to address your technology needs. The result: market -tested solutions that simplify and expedite all stages of your project. Our value added tools include:

Structured Negotiation Process: Our unique structured approach to negotiations streamlines the process by: 1) creating a negotiation work plan that identifies your critical issues upfront; 2) allowing you to resolve or escalate identified issues to avoid surprises and delays; 3) ensuring negotiations that are focused and productive; and 4) facilitating prompt and complete document turnaround.

Business Decision Matrix: We commonly use a business decision matrix to provide business context to our recommendations, efficiently obtain input from your business leaders on targeted issues that are important to your company and the transaction, and facilitate resolution of conflicting inputs.

Checklists: Our checklists focus on single subjects, such as software license, security due diligence, or maintenance and support, and incorporate critical discussions of the business issues that each item on the list is intended to address.

FOLEY IntelliSource^SM: We developed this online service to provide a pricing and service alternative for certain software license and IT professional services license agreements. For a set fee, a standard vendor agreement form will be reviewed within 24 hours after an expedited conflict review is performed, and you will receive a red-line document review that includes an assessment of the issues and risks as well as suggested solutions.

Data Collection and Transaction Management Tools: We have developed electronic tools that capture relevant information regarding technology agreements and enable electronic storage and retrieval of agreements and amendments.

We have created outsourcing relationships valued in the billions of dollars and have extensive experience with all leading providers of outsourcing services. What does that mean for you? We provide you with a huge head start with your sourcing initiative. We lay out what works, what does not, the areas that you need to pay special attention to, how to avoid common errors and hidden costs, and what it takes to successfully manage a sourcing supplier for the duration of the relationship. Using our best practices, we will guide you through the entire process — from strategy development to transition. Our experience covers all types of IT and business process outsourcing procurement, negotiation, and issue management, as well as existing transaction restructuring and renegotiating.

We have negotiated thousands of licensing transactions and have extensive experience with all leading vendors. Our practical business experience and broad technical knowledge provide the understanding required to guide you through the process of acquiring and implementing information systems and business partner relationships, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), financial systems, knowledge management, technology infrastructure systems, and a wide variety of specialized industry systems, such as Customer Information Systems (CIS) and Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems.

Given the range of transactions we are asked to review, we have developed a system for adapting our approach to proposed vendor agreements based on transaction complexity, size, and business objectives. This enables us to manage fees while ensuring the appropriate level of review for your agreements.

Cloud and other online services have mushroomed in recent years. Our lawyers have extensive experience in drafting and negotiating every kind of cloud-related engagement, including software as a service, application service provider, hosted services, and infrastructure as a service, among others. Our experience with hundreds of transactions affords us the ability to quickly identify key issues, expedite negotiations, and help ensure you are adequately protected. We also have developed various best-practice checklists and template approaches for these engagements. We have worked with clients like you in the retail, auto, manufacturing, consumer sales, and in highly regulated industries, such as financial services and health care, with regard to every aspect of doing business in the cloud. Our Technology Transactions & Outsourcing attorneys offer significant experience in areas such as mobile application development and deployment, strategic partnering arrangements, marketing, electronic payments, including e-wallet applications, credit card transactions, telecommunications, regulatory compliance, privacy, and information security. We continuously track the latest guidance from regulators regarding cloud and online issues and best practices to ensure compliance and efficiency.

We are highly experienced in incorporating information security and privacy protections into every aspect of technology transactions, including those in the cloud and those involving offshore providers. We have developed specific tools for integrating information security into the entire contracting process, from initial vendor contact through contract negotiation and post-execution monitoring. These tools scale to reflect the sensitivity of the data involved, including whether the data is the subject of state, federal, or international regulation and/or contractual requirements (e.g., payment card industry data security standard, card association rules, and so forth). We have devoted much of our practice to assisting clients in regulated industries to ensure their technology contracts pass regulatory muster with regard to their sensitive data. In fact, we have developed checklists for compliance that have been reviewed and approved by their regulators.

Learn More

Comprehensive and well-designed records management and retention policies are critical to ensuring your company’s compliance with federal regulations, especially new federal e-discovery rules.

We counsel and advise clients on all aspects of the development, implementation, and operation of records management and retention policies, including comprehensive electronic records management policies and procedures for email and other electronic records.

We begin by performing a risk assessment and audit of your existing policies and procedures to confirm compliance, or identify compliance gaps, with applicable laws, statutes, and regulations. And when it comes to cost-effective and legally compliant discovery procedures, we can assist you with implementing litigation preparedness and e-discovery policies in light of new federal e-discovery rules.

We also review and negotiate service and license agreements with electronic records software vendors and service providers, and we have developed contract management policies to ensure electronic access to key contracts, appropriate employee access controls, and development of vendor agreements for implementation of contract management software solutions.