One supplier, different company rules

Imagine a manufacturer and a professional-services company in the same portfolio considering a common supplier. Both want clear responsibilities and comparable costs. Their systems, information and permitted actions differ. Start by sharing the questions you ask, before deciding whether to share any live accounts. The aim is to compare the supplier’s answers while leaving each company able to make its own decision.

The common questions can cover data handling, support, incidents, changes, access to evidence and how charges are defined. Add a separate company sheet for its exact systems, required actions, administrators, processing locations and rules for approving the work. Save the version each company used so a later answer can be matched to the setup it describes. Different answers may reflect different company needs; they do not necessarily mean the buying process has failed.

Use a table with six columns: requirement, common answer, company difference, source, reviewer and decision. Leave an item open if the answer names only the product family or leaves out the edition being quoted. This lets you reuse a supplier’s evidence without asking colleagues to assume that an answer for the manufacturer also covers the services company.

Hebbia describes separate customer environments and an option for a dedicated tenant. WRITER describes separation between teams in one organization. Google describes data isolated within a Cloud project. Those descriptions refer to different units.^1,2,3,4

Ask what each unit would mean for your companies. Have the supplier draw the proposed setup for the fund, each company, support staff and outside advisers. Mark where documents, model requests, answers and logs go. Then show who may search, read, change settings, approve actions and export information. Someone preparing a board report may need the approved figures without needing access to every underlying company record.

Use approved sample data to try the access that should be refused. The manufacturer’s user should not retrieve the services company’s sample client file. The fund’s reporting user should see only the agreed report. Also remove access, try temporary administrator access and walk through a support investigation. Ask to see what happened and the record it left. Before the exercise, agree precisely what must be refused and who may authorize an override.

Google says the Gemini Enterprise app and Agent Platform are separate purchases. Relevance AI describes Vendor Credits for model and tool usage. Microsoft documents a limit administrators can set on pay-as-you-go Copilot credit spending.^5,6,7

Use those details to ask what the full arrangement will cost. List software, setup, custom connections, model and tool usage, support and the company’s own operating time. Name the account that receives each charge and how shared costs will be split. A limit on consumption controls one expense; it does not include every cost of running the program. Different billing units only become comparable when the proposed work is the same.

Ask for the process and price of adding a company, replacing an ERP, adding a workflow or removing a company. Which settings and records could be exported, who would do it and what would the charge cover? Pass the proposed terms to the people responsible for commercial and legal review. These are questions for the agreement; this guide does not establish a right to transfer records, move a configuration or exit on particular terms.

Copilot Studio documents approval steps for moving work from development into production. Relevance AI describes rerunning evaluation tests before publishing changes.^8,9

Keep the buying record just as specific. Alongside the shared supplier answers, file the company’s access tests, proposed workflow, staffing commitments and quote. Name who will answer each open question and when the answer is needed. Approving a common supplier agreement should not quietly approve a workflow that has yet to pass the company’s own checks.

For example, the manufacturer might approve an assistant that reads maintenance cases but cannot control equipment. The services company might approve internal procedure search but exclude client communications. Record both decisions within the same buying process. Each company can keep its own limits without needing to inherit the other’s permissions just to use a common supplier.

Nexus describes an engineer building the first procedure with the customer’s team in its own tools. Its published launch rule says the CIO must be able to sign off on data flow, access and the audit trail before an agent ships.^10,11

For the proposed manufacturer trial, ask that engineer to turn the company sheet into a working, read-only maintenance procedure. Have the local team inspect which records it uses and what its logs show. Nexus’s build help gives the company a concrete example to review against the shared buying questions. The services company can request the same review of its own procedure, without inheriting permission to read the manufacturer’s records. Each company still decides whether its setup passes.^10,11

Keep the shared evidence and the signed company decisions together. Reopen the relevant company sheet when an edition, connection, model route or support arrangement changes. Retain the earlier decision too, so the next reviewer can tell what was approved at the time. A useful portfolio standard makes these differences easy to find, explain and review.