- Too often, organizations fail to achieve economy of scale. They neglect to negotiate price holds, do not negotiate deeper discounts as volume increases, or do not realize there are already existing contracts within the organization.
- Understand what to negotiate. Organizations do not know what can and cannot be negotiated, which means value gets left on the table.
- Integrations with other applications must be addressed from the outset. Many users buy the platform only to realize later on that the functionality they wanted does not exist and may be an extra expense with customization.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Buying power dissipates when you sign the contract. Get the right product for the right number of users for the right term and get it right the first time.
- Getting the best price does not assure a great total cost of ownership or ROI. There are many components as part of the purchasing process that if unaccounted for can lead to dramatic and unbudgeted spend.
- Avoid buyer’s remorse through due diligence before signing the deal. If you need to customize the software or extend it with a third-party add-in, identify your costs and timelines upfront. Plan for successful adoption.
Impact and Result
- Centralize purchasing instead of enabling small deals to maximize discount levels by creating a process to derive a cost-effective methodology when subscribing to Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Force.com.
- Educate your organization on Salesforce’s licensing methods and contract types, enabling informed purchasing decisions. Critical components of every agreement that need to be negotiated are a renewal escalation cap, term protection, and license metrics to document what comes with each. Re-bundling protection is also critical in case a product is no longer desired.
- Proactively addressing integrations and business requirements will enable project success and enable the regular upgrades the come with a multi-tenant cloud services SaaS solution.
Looking at Risk in a New Light: The Six Pillars of Vendor Risk Management
Manage Exponential Value Relationships
Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative
Capture and Market the ROI of Your VMO
Cut Cost Through Effective IT Category Planning
Design and Build an Effective Contract Lifecycle Management Process
Maximize Value From Your Value-Added Reseller (VAR)
Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes With a Robust RFP Process
Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements
Slash Spending by Optimizing Your Software Maintenance and Support
Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Security Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Evaluate Your Vendor Account Team to Optimize Vendor Relations
Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative
Prepare for Negotiations More Effectively
Implement Your Negotiation Strategy More Effectively
Evaluate and Learn From Your Negotiation Sessions More Effectively
Proactively Identify and Mitigate Vendor Risk
Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models
Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business
Identify and Manage Regulatory and Compliance Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts on Your Organization
Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A
Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk
Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable
Understand Common IT Contract Provisions to Negotiate More Effectively
Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
Master the MSA for Your Managed Services Providers
Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last
Establish a Vendor Management Roadmap to Succeed With Autonomous Technologies
Price Benchmarking & Negotiation
Stop Wasting Time Evaluating Commoditized Products and Services
Ensure Business Alignment in Managed Service Agreements
Comparing Software Practices in Maturing IT
Run IT By the Numbers
Transform IT, Transform Everything
The Race to Develop Talent
Building Info-Tech’s Chatbot
Assessing the AI Ecosystem
Sync or Sink: Aligning IT and HR for the Future of Work
Building the Road to Governing Digital Intelligence
Bring AI Out of the Shadows
The AI Vendor Landscape in IT
IT Spend and Staffing Benchmarking
An Operational Framework for Rolling Out AI