Silver Bullet Associates has access to unique market intelligence on all the main IT suppliers. In the last 12 months we've helped our clients negotiate with:
BEA, BMC, Business Objects, Coda, Cognos, Computer Associates, Compuware, EMC, Epicor, Geac, HP, Hyperion, i2, iSoft, IBM, IFS, Infor, Intentia, JD Edwards, Lawson, Lotus, Legato, Manugistics, Microsoft, MidlandHR, NorthgateHR, Oracle, Open Text, Peoplesoft, Progress, QAD, Rightnow, Sage, Salesforce.com, SAP, SAS Institute, Serena, Siebel, SSA Global, Sterling Commerce, Stratus, Sun, Sybase, Symantec, Syspro, Tibco, Veritas.
"We had a sneaking suspicion that we were paying one of our suppliers too much. Silver Bullet Associates analyzed our contracts and pointed out that the supplier had been overcharging us for the last 3 years!"
Procurement Manager, Food Retailer
Silver Bullet Latest News
We are pleased to share some of our recent Press Releases:
> Could your procurement team benefit from a Performance Coach?
> Silver Bullet announces first training course
> Negotiations Fail From Poor Planning
> Look Before You Leap
> Revenue Recognition: Road-blocks to a better deal
> Supplier Relationship Management
> Microsoft Office 2007
> Software Asset Management
> Retailer Negotiates CRM Software Savings
> Cutting Your Database Software Costs
> Negotiating Lower Maintenance Costs
Could your procurement team benefit from a Performance Coach?
April 2008
Managing the IT procurement process and ensuring you get the most out of your IT procurement team is never an easy task. Silver Bullet Associates has developed a coaching and mentoring solution that will help you and your procurement colleagues raise your game and achieve more success. More details can be found on our Services page.
Silver Bullet announces first training course
January 2008
We have often been asked if Silver Bullet Associates would also provide relevant Training courses for both IT Managers and Purchasing professionals. We are delighted to announce that as from January 2008 our expanding team now includes a training professional who has for the last 15 years been helping many of the top IT vendors (including EMC, EDS, SUN Microsystems, Computacenter, Storage Technology, Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems) improve the performance of their sales teams. He is now working with Silver Bullet Associates to help IT Managers, IT buyers and end users understand why IT sales people do what they do and say what they say. Our first 1 day training course is entitled ‘Inside the mind of an IT sales person’ and more details can be found on our training page.
Negotiations Fail From Poor Planning
October 2007
It’s common knowledge that successful negotiations are the result of good planning. Professional IT sales people know this and will often spend hours planning in detail how to get clients to agree to a new deal or contract. Nothing is left to chance and all objections are analysed and answers pre-prepared. Professional IT buyers need to plan in as much detail if they are to win at the negotiating table. Meticulous planning should be the first watchword for any experienced negotiator. However, in today’s demanding world, time is a precious commodity and sometimes even the most professional IT buyers don’t have the luxury of time to plan as they would like.
That’s when you should engage the support of Silver Bullet Associates. Working alongside your own procurement team, we can bring added resource and research to accelerate your preparation and planning process. And we can then discreetly advise your procurement team during the negotiation to ensure that they always get the best deals for your business. Never forget the old adage; if you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
May 2007
The more information you have about your incumbent IT suppliers, the easier it is to negotiate with them. If you know you have a maintenance renewal coming up soon from an existing supplier, do some homework before you receive their renewal quotation. Find out what your historic spend has been, what discounts and terms did you get last time around, what changes have you made that might have increased or decreased your usage of their products, have you been happy with their support and responsiveness over the last year or two, how many times have you called their helpdesk, do they still satisfy a key element of your IT strategy or is their products usefulness on the wane, when is their financial year end, is their business growing or in decline, have they stopped doing R&D on the products you use, what would happen if you simply didn’t renew the maintenance agreement?
Revenue recognition: Road-blocks to a better deal
March 2007
The challenge for software vendors, especially US ones, is that US accounting rules can penalize them if they try to give customers the commercial terms they want. Sales of software can be recognized on delivery, but maintenance income must be recognized at a later date as it accrues. This can mean that ‘bundling’ license costs and maintenance charges into one ’easy to swallow’ bill may not be a realistic target to aim for and may result in you getting a worse deal than you could have got if you’d unbundled the costs and negotiated piecemeal.
Supplier Relationship Management
January 2007
How you manage your IT suppliers can have a huge impact on the success (or failure) of your business. Good relationships, fair contracts and competitive pricing can all help towards maximizing your ROI and boosting your bottom line. Silver Bullet Associates offers consultancy and advice on how to manage your software suppliers and how to avoid unpleasant financial or legal surprises.
December 2006
Will Microsoft have a hard time convincing users to upgrade when it releases Office 2007? "Businesses need a good reason to part with their money" says Mark Bartrick, Managing Director of Silver Bullet Associates Ltd. Click the following link for the full article: IT Week article
November 2006
Midlands-based software negotiation experts Silver Bullet Associates have launched a new service offering advice on Software Asset Management. They can help you save money by telling you if your business or organisation is over-licenced, under-licenced or at risk for non-compliance.
Retailer Negotiates CRM Software Savings
October 2006
Challenge: A major high street retailer had short-listed a preferred CRM software vendor. The retailer prided itself in its ‘hard nosed’ approach to negotiation and had already obtained some good concessions and deep discounts which had so far reduced the vendor’s proposed price down to just under £2m.
Solution: Silver Bullet was asked to review and price benchmark the vendors latest proposal and comment on whether there were any savings left on the table. Within 24 hours, Silver Bullet had delivered a Negotiation Summary to the retailer highlighting that, depending on how the retailer proposed to use the software, there was between £280,000 and £330,000 still to come out of the deal.
Result: Silver Bullet’s advice gave the retailer’s negotiators the target pricing and discounting to aim for. As a result, the retailer was able to negotiate a further £300,000 reduction in the cost of the deal and they were also able to lock-in the discounts for 5 years.
Cutting Your Database Software Costs
October 2006
Challenge: A food manufacturer and distributor had decided to replace its legacy applications. As a direct result of which, they required a significant upgrade to their core database engine. The database supplier had reviewed the food manufacturer’s requirements and had proposed that they must spend $4.4m on additional licenses and maintenance/support.
Solution: Silver Bullet was asked to review and price benchmark the vendors latest proposal and comment on whether there were any savings left on the table. Within 24 hours, Silver Bullet had delivered a Negotiation Summary to the food manufacturer highlighting that the vendor had not correctly applied its own volume discounting rules and as a result there was at least $500,000 (and possibly as much as $640,000) to come out of the proposed price.
Result: Silver Bullet gave the food manufacturer the target pricing and discounting to aim for as well as a negotiation plan on how to get the better deal. As a result, the food manufacturer was able to negotiate a further $560,000 reduction in the cost of the deal.
Negotiating Lower Maintenance Costs
September 2006
Challenge: An insurance company was facing a maintenance renewal of £1.5m p.a from one of its main enterprise software suppliers. The insurance company had no alternative but to renew the maintenance agreement. There were no competitive alternative offerings available and the renewal date was fast approaching.
Solution: Silver Bullet was asked to review whether the insurance company had any negotiation leverage. Within 24 hours, Silver Bullet had delivered a Negotiation Summary to the insurance company highlighting that the software supplier had in fact been over-charging the insurance company for the last 3 years and that the current proposal was also some £112,000 p.a over-priced.
Result: The insurance company took Silver Bullet’s advice and negotiated a further £100,000 p.a reduction in the cost of the new deal as well as an admission from the software supplier that they had indeed over-charged the insurance company in the past and so would offer a ‘credit’ of £200,000 against any new software purchases the insurance company made in the future.