Managing an operational technology (OT) network with multiple vendors can feel like conducting an orchestra. Each vendor handles specialized areas like HVAC, lighting, security, and building automation, all of which must work together harmoniously. However, achieving this coordination can be challenging. As the OT network manager, you face the task of aligning different priorities without creating additional challenges, from system interoperability to conflicting schedules. Effective vendor management is essential to ensure the network operates smoothly.
If this sounds familiar, don’t worry. Help is here. We’ve rounded up some of the most common challenges faced by OT leaders managing multiple OT vendors, and best practices you can follow to effectively project manage your teams and prevent problems from cropping up down the road.
Programming and Feature Interoperability
Deadline and Priority Conflicts
Unclear Responsibilities and Finger-Pointing
Data Ownership, Security, and Access
Challenge: Programming and Feature Interoperability (And Avoiding Vendor Lock-In)
One of the most significant challenges of managing multiple OT vendors is ensuring interoperability. Vendors often default to proprietary technologies or specialized hardware that don’t always play nicely with others. Some vendors prefer to use software or hardware that offers features that aren’t common to other hardware within the larger network, causing headaches when trying to ensure all systems communicate effectively.
Solution: Standardize
To streamline integration, start by requiring the use of standardized open-source protocols, like BACnet, across all vendors. This industry-standard protocol is designed for building automation and control networks, promoting smoother interactions between different systems. Encouraging all vendors to adopt BACnet can significantly reduce compatibility headaches.
Beyond the mere adoption of a standard protocol like BACnet, it’s crucial to delve deeper into the nuances of vendor-specific implementations. While BACnet provides a common language, vendors may implement features differently. This can lead to discrepancies in functionality, such as variations in alarm handling or data point types. Ensure that devices have compatible physical interfaces, such as Ethernet or serial ports, and can function across the common power source available (like PoE).
Additional Strategies to consider include:
- Vendor Qualification: Establish a rigorous vendor qualification process to assess their commitment to standards, track record of interoperability, and support capabilities.
- Pilot Testing: Conduct pilot tests to evaluate the compatibility of different vendor products before deploying them on a larger scale.
- Centralized Management: Implement a centralized management platform that can monitor and control devices from multiple vendors, providing a unified view of the network.
- Regular Updates: Keep software and firmware up-to-date to benefit from bug fixes, security patches, and new features that can enhance interoperability.
Challenge: BBMD Ownership and Management
A BACnet Broadcast Management Device (BBMD) plays a key role in ensuring that BACnet traffic can communicate across different network segments (VLANs and subnets). However, conflicts can arise when multiple vendors install their own BBMDs without coordination. It’s not uncommon, for example, for a vendor to install a new network segment or subnet and complete it with BBMD-enabled devices to tie into the rest of the network. Unfortunately, this is sometimes done without checking to see if BBMDs from other vendors are already in place.
Duplicate BBMDs can cause network disruptions, leading to excessive broadcast traffic and degraded system performance.
Solution: Regularly monitor your network
The best way to avoid BBMD conflicts is through careful BBMD management protocols. Make it clear who is responsible for configuring and maintaining the BBMD, ensuring that only one device is assigned to each subnet.
We highly recommend you use network monitoring tools, like OptigoVN, to keep an eye on BBMD performance and detect potential misconfigurations early. It’s a good idea to designate one vendor to regularly audit your OT network for duplicate or misconfigured BBMDs that could lead to broadcast storms.
Seeing issues and errors in your data you can’t explain? You might have a duplication issue. OptigoVN is the fastest way to pinpoint duplication issues—from devices to network numbers—zeroing into the device level so you can get it fixed. Fast.
Challenge: Deadline and Priority Conflicts
Vendors often operate on their own timelines, which may not align with the overall project goals. For example, one vendor might prioritize completing their system installation quickly to meet their deadlines, while another vendor’s work depends on the first vendor completing their tasks. This mismatch can delay the overall project, causing frustration and inefficiency. Additionally, vendors may prioritize the performance of their system without considering how their choices affect the wider network.
Solution: Create clear timelines (and keep track of them!)
To mitigate these issues before projects begin, establish clear project timelines and shared goals from the outset. Use project management tools—browser-based software like Jira to Trello that allows you to set up goals, and milestones, and assign individual tasks—to track progress and keep everyone on the same page.
Consider hiring a Master Systems Integrator (MSI) to act as the point person for managing multiple OT vendors, ensuring that everyone works together smoothly. An MSI has the expertise to oversee multiple systems and help mediate when priorities conflict, ensuring the project stays on track and systems are integrated properly.
Challenge: Managing Complex Communications
Communication breakdowns can be common when managing multiple OT vendors. With a lot of competing voices, it’s going to require a lot of coordination to make sure everyone is on the same page. If a vendor isn’t clear about the security settings required for their system, for example, it could leave the network vulnerable to breaches. Similarly, miscommunication on integration requirements can lead to costly rework or downtime.
And after deployment, clear communication is still vital. Communication also affects how vendors share system updates or troubleshooting processes.
Solution: Documentation and Open Comms
Creating detailed documentation is key to avoiding these pitfalls. This documentation should include system requirements, integration points, security protocols, and network diagrams that clearly explain how the overall system is designed.
This documentation should also be centralized and easy to access. By ensuring every vendor has access to the same documentation, you minimize the risk of miscommunication.
Also consider setting up regular cross-vendor meetings, where all vendors discuss their progress and any challenges they’re facing, ensuring that everyone is aligned. Using a platform that allows real-time updates, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, can also enhance communication across vendors, making it easier to resolve issues quickly.
Challenge: Resolving Unclear Responsibilities and Finger-Pointing
When something goes wrong, it’s easy for vendors to shift blame onto each other, especially in a highly connected system like an OT network. For example, if the HVAC system fails, the HVAC vendor might blame the network, while the network vendor points to hardware problems. This finger-pointing not only delays problem resolution but can also harm relationships between vendors and the facility manager.
Solution: SLAs
Clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are critical to setting expectations from the start. These agreements should outline the scope of each vendor’s responsibilities, expected response times, and performance metrics. SLAs provide a clear framework that holds vendors accountable. Beyond SLAs, creating a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed) matrix can help define who takes the lead on each aspect of the network and who should be consulted when issues arise. This ensures that everyone knows their role and reduces ambiguity during troubleshooting.
Additionally, a Vendor Responsibility Matrix—a document that outlines the specific responsibilities of each vendor—can help prevent disputes and accelerate problem resolution.
Challenge: Maintenance Coordination
Vendors often maintain their own maintenance schedules—without much regard for the conflicts it might cause. For instance, the HVAC vendor might schedule a major system update without knowing that the security system vendor has maintenance planned on the same day. If both systems need to be taken offline simultaneously, it could leave the building without climate control and security, creating a serious disruption.
Solution: Centralize your maintenance schedules
To prevent overlapping outages, setting up a centralized maintenance schedule is key. Make sure all vendors have access to it, along with facility managers, to avoid potential conflicts. You can use tools like Google Calendar, Outlook, or specialized facility management software to help plan and coordinate maintenance. A rolling maintenance strategy—where repairs and updates are spread out—helps ensure that not all systems go offline at once, keeping essential services up and running. It’s also a good idea to perform risk assessments before any maintenance to identify potential problem areas that might need extra attention.
Challenge: Data Ownership, Security, and Access
Data ownership can be a sticking point with vendors who may be hesitant to share data or relinquish control over their systems, often due to proprietary information or security. This makes it hard to gain a centralized view of the entire OT network.
On the other hand, without proper access control, unauthorized individuals risk gaining too much visibility into sensitive areas of the network.
Solution: Establish data-sharing requirements and controls
A centralized data platform can provide visibility into the network’s health, allowing facility managers to maintain a zero-trust security stance with role-based access control to limit what each vendor can see and control.
Solution: During contract negotiations, make sure to include data-sharing agreements that clearly define who owns the data and how it will be accessed and shared. These agreements should establish a clear path for how data flows from each vendor’s system into a centralized data platform while respecting their data privacy concerns.
Utilizing a solution with sharable access to diagnostic data, like Optigo Visual Networks, allows your vendors to view and analyze data from across the entire network.
When setting up shared data sets, make sure to Implement role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure that vendors only have access to the systems and data necessary for their work. This should be part of an overall zero-trust security model, where access is tightly controlled and monitored, which can help ensure the network’s security while still providing centralized visibility.
Leveraging OptigoVN for Effective Vendor Management
OptigoVN is purpose-built to monitor your entire OT network, no matter the vendor. By applying our monitoring and diagnostics solutions to all your OT subnets, you’ll get the whole picture in one place. That enables several ways that OptigoVN can optimize managing multiple OT vendors:
- Holding vendors accountable: OptigoVN tracks system performance and provides real-time data, ensuring vendors are meeting SLAs. This allows you to pinpoint potential issues with a vendor’s equipment and take action accordingly.
- Identifying root causes: Beyond data capture, OptigoVN aids in root cause analysis, which is useful when it’s unclear which vendor is responsible for an issue.
- Providing evidence of vendor performance: OptigoVN allows you to see the historical performance of each OT network you monitor, allowing you to track vendor improvements over time, help with contract renewals, or resolve disputes.
- Improving Communication: OptigoVN’s collaborative features, such as real-time data sharing and shared workspaces, enable better communication between you and your vendors, ensuring faster problem resolution.
While tools like OptigoVN enhance vendor management, having strong processes in place—like clear contracts, SLAs, and regular performance reviews—is essential to ensuring successful co-existence with multiple vendors.
By addressing these challenges with strategic planning, technology, and robust communication protocols, facility managers can manage multiple OT vendors while maintaining both an efficient and secure OT network.

How many issues will you solve today?
FAQ: Managing Multiple OT Vendors
1. Why is managing multiple OT vendors on a single network challenging?
Collaborating with multiple vendors can lead to overlapping responsibilities, unclear communication, and potential network misconfigurations. This complexity is exacerbated when vendors work independently without a unified strategy for the OT network.
2. What are the key risks of having multiple vendors on a site?
Risks include inconsistent network configurations, duplicate network issues, and inefficient troubleshooting during downtime. Without proper coordination, these can cause prolonged outages and increased operational costs.
3. How can Optigo Visual Networks (OptigoVN) help streamline vendor collaboration?
OptigoVN offers visibility into network performance and diagnostics, ensuring all vendors work with the same up-to-date information. This platform centralizes data sharing, reducing confusion and miscommunication.
4. What strategies are recommended for seamless vendor management?
- Establish a clear communication protocol among all vendors.
- Use diagnostic tools like OptigoVN to maintain consistent network monitoring.
- Assign a lead integrator or facility manager to oversee and coordinate vendor activities.
5. How does using a unified platform like OptigoVN minimize network issues?
A centralized diagnostic system allows all vendors to detect and resolve problems collaboratively. OptigoVN ensures everyone operates with the same network insights, streamlining root cause analysis and preventing redundant work.