Treating vendors as partners rather than as mere suppliers can lead to not only better service but also reduced costs and improved innovation. At Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit management firm in St. Louis, the vendor management process has been key in supporting massive growth over the past few years, writes Peter High at CIO Insight.

To compete more effectively against other lending institutions, Toyota Financial Services is seeking greater IT agility.  Pressure to churn out new products and services faster is driving the company to move its private cloud to a software-defined data center architecture, reports Michael Vizard at CIO Insight.

When IT and business units don't work together harmoniously, it can be a great opportunity--for vendors that is. When vendors sell tools to units independently of IT, the tools often work well separately but not so well together, writes Brian Katz at InfoWorld. Without a concerted effort by IT and the business, the company is apt to get trounced.

As IT enhances its interaction with business units, the CIO must learn to delegate relationship management responsibilities. However, the role of business relationship executive can be structured in many different ways, with varying degrees of accountability and authority, writes Martha Heller in a post at CIO magazine.

Talk about an insider threat: An NYPD detective was arrested on charges of ordering hacks into dozens of email accounts of fellow detectives and other individuals, reports Mathew J. Schwartz at InformationWeek.