The ability to build and maintain strong relationships with business partners and vendors is an essential requirement for any business seeking long-term success. This is especially true in the fast-paced technology sector, where a company’s ability to put its innovative ideas to work often depends on its access to outside capital and its skill in turning connections into contractually-bound partners, vendors, clients, and customers. The unfortunate corollary to the need for technology firms to build and maintain relationships with outside partners is, of course, that no relationship is perfect. Not all partnerships are built to last. That reality raises an all-important question: how do you prepare your firm for the inevitable day when one of its business relationships sours?

As my colleague Linda Powell discussed recently, firms that provide technology services and products can manage their relationship-based risk by purchasing Technology Errors and Omissions (Tech E&O) insurance. Alternately known as Technology Professional Liability Insurance, Tech E&O insurance is likely to respond to demand letters, claims, or lawsuits brought against your firm by dissatisfied business partners, vendors, or customers who believe that your firm has committed an error or made an omission that caused financial harm.