Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
Optimize spend with significant cost savings and negotiate from a position of strength.
- Internal stakeholders usually have different – and often conflicting – needs and expectations that require careful facilitation and management.
- Vendors have well-honed negotiating strategies. Without understanding your own position and leverage points, it’s difficult to withstand their persuasive – and sometimes pushy – tactics.
- Software – and software licensing – is constantly changing, making it difficult to acquire and retain subject matter expertise.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Conservatively, it’s possible to save 5% of the overall IT budget through comprehensive software contract review.
- Focus on the terms and conditions, not just the price.
- Learning to negotiate is crucial.
Impact and Result
- Look at your contract holistically to find cost savings.
- Guide communication between vendors and your organization for the duration of contract negotiations.
- Redline the terms and conditions of your software contract.
- Prioritize crucial terms and conditions to negotiate.
Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to redline and negotiate your software agreement, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Gather requirements
Build and manage your stakeholder team, then document your business use case.
2. Redline contract
Redline your proposed software contract.
3. Negotiate contract
Create a thorough negotiation plan.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
ACS Ventures Inc.
Guided Implementation
8/10
$5,000
2
City Of Fort Collins
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,395
18
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
British Columbia Transit
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc.
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc.
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
Canpotex Limited
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,000
5
QuikTrip
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,733
2
Onsite Workshop: Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Collect and Review Data
The Purpose
- Assemble documentation.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand current position before going forward.
Activities
Outputs
Assemble existing contracts.
Document their strategic and tactical objectives.
Identify current status of the vendor relationship and any historical context.
Clarify goals for ideal future state.
- Business Use Case
Module 2: Define Business Use Case and Build Stakeholder Team
The Purpose
- Define business use case and build stakeholder team.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create business use case to document functional and nonfunctional requirements.
- Build internal cross-functional stakeholder team to negotiate contract.
Activities
Outputs
Establish negotiation team and define roles.
- RASCI Chart
Write communication plan.
- Vendor Communication Management Plan
Complete business use case.
- SaaS TCO Calculator
- Software Business Use Case
Module 3: Redline Contract
The Purpose
- Examine terms and conditions and prioritize for negotiation.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Discover cost savings.
- Improve agreement terms.
- Prioritize terms for negotiation.
Activities
Outputs
Review general terms and conditions.
Review license- and application-specific terms and conditions.
- Software Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool
Match to business and technical requirements.
- Software Buyer’s Checklist
Redline agreement.
Module 4: Build Negotiation Strategy
The Purpose
- Create a negotiation strategy.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Establish controlled communication.
- Choose negotiation tactics.
- Plot negotiation timeline.
Activities
Outputs
Review vendor- and application-specific negotiation tactics.
- Contract Negotiation Tactics Playbook
Build negotiation strategy.
- Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
- Key Vendor Fiscal Year End Calendar
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 6 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Gather requirements
- Call #1 - Define business use case and build stakeholder team
- Call #2 - Evaluate initial proposal
Guided Implementation #2 - Redline contract
- Call #1 - Review terms and conditions
- Call #2 - Validate requirements and incorporate into redlined contract
Guided Implementation #3 - Negotiate contract
- Call #1 - Develop a negotiation strategy
- Call #2 - Review final proposal
Contributors
- Christiaan Murphy, Global Software Category Manager at CGI
- Jeffery I. Gordon, SVP, author of Software Licensing Handbook & Mortgage Lending Vendor Operations Manager at BT&T
- David W. Tollen, Attorney at Law & Founder at Sycamore Legal, P.C.