Anthony J. BradleyIn my new Group Vice President role at Gartner I have the pleasure of working with the Gartner team that helps clients negotiate better contracts with their software vendors. This brings me back 10 years when at Meta Group I assisted clients with software contract negotiations.
I was amazed at what vendors would pull, or try to pull and what they would actually get away with (I know this is a dangling preposition). It was also surprising how much a little client preparation could save large amounts of money. Some of the key mistakes included:
- Waiting too long to prepare for negotiations
- Poor understanding of license needs and compliance (putting the vendor in a position of greater knowledge, ignorance favors the vendor)
- Little effort to increase the negotiating power position
- Mentality that the results aren’t worth the effort or that nothing can really be done (blame it on past poor contract negotiations)
The good news is that the Gartner IT Asset Management and Procurement (ITAM&P) team routinely helps clients save thousands, even millions of dollars in negotiating software contracts. So it can be done.
Bill Snyder, one of my analysts on the ITAM&P team, is delivering a FREE Webinar tomorrow morning (sorry for the late notice) on “Software Licensing and Pricing: Negotiating the Right Terms and Conditions is Key to Containing Costs.” Check it out and register here.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Anthony Bradley April 13, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Bill is doing the Webinar at 9 and 12 ET. A whole list of upcoming FREE Gartner webinars is listed here http://tinyurl.com/y57vq45
2 Tweets that mention How to Kick Butt in Negotiating with Software Vendors -- Topsy.com April 14, 2010 at 8:41 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gary Meadows, Anthony Bradley. Anthony Bradley said: Are you kicking butt in your software contract negotiations or are you getting your butt kicked? http://tinyurl.com/y2y7eca [...]