At NET(net), we’re constantly asked: “Can I terminate my agreement with XYZ Supplier mid-term?” The short answer? It’s tough—but not impossible. As you’ll see in the attached chart, termination rights for enterprise customers with technology vendors fall into one of five categories, as outlined below: Termination for convenience is rare due to vendor resistance, as it undermines revenue stability. TermScout notes 82% of customer forms seek this right, but negotiated contracts often exclude it, especially in SaaS or long-term deals. However, large enterprises with strong leverage (e.g., Fortune 100 companies) may secure this right in some ...
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Entering a new IT supplier relationship is like embarking on a promising tech venture, brimming with potential—until it derails due to avoidable missteps. A well-structured agreement should pave the way for success, but slip-ups like ambiguous contract terms, half-hearted due diligence, or assuming your supplier shares your exact vision can lead to costly delays, disputes, or unmet goals. In this article, we’ll highlight critical mistakes to steer clear of when building IT supplier agreements, offering practical tips to ensure a smoother, more reliable partnership. 1 - Lack of Clear Objectives and Requirements Mistake: Failing to define your ...
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European companies may face a dual challenge as the U.S. seemingly shifts its strategic focus, which may necessitate measures to assess risk and potentially reduce reliance on American based technology firms. The new US administration has signaled an increasing prioritization of its own domestic manufacturing, which has increased the specter of raising tariffs on EU goods like automobiles and machinery to shrink its $200 billion goods deficit - while simultaneously redirecting resources to counter China’s economic and political challenges across the globe. This pivot may leave EU firms exposed, as the US has signaled it can’t indefinitely ...
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The fiscal year end is a critical time of year for both suppliers as well as technology buyers, many of whom are in the middle of 2024 budget planning as I type this. Several tech suppliers are wrapping up their fiscal year soon, and will be putting on the full court press to customers and prospects aiming to get as much revenue possible before the book closes on the year. During times of required action (renewals, new purchases, etc.) or duress (audits, M&As), we feel the pressure to get the deals done, and rarely take a step back to view the tech market as a 'federated'' whole, and how that might be impacting your business decisions. ...
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It’s a now well-known axiom that there is opportunity in chaos. From our vantage point, technology suppliers are joining in the spirit of that theme to accelerate price increases which are then passed along to their customers. Price gouging it would seem is no longer the domain of consumer goods as we suspect it’s also being employed in high tech. If you have been involved recently in a renewal, software audit, M&A activity, or any other supplier intensive negotiation, some of these price increase ‘excuses’ may sound familiar: Inflation Energy costs Interest rates Labor supply Economic downturn War in Ukraine Rising US dollar value ...
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As discussed in some of our previous blogs, market indicators continued to show signs that a recessionary environment was on the horizon. Today, it became official wherein the U.S. recorded its second straight quarter GDP retraction. Preceding this news, were some unfortunate earnings reports coming from Fortune 100 companies (Walmart missed expectations on lowered forecasts). Firms are carrying unanticipated levels of inventory and are having to heavily discount to get rid of it, which are all harbingers of low growth, lower revenue and tighter margins. From our blog titled, “CEOs: #1 Action to Protect Your Organization from The Looming ...
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As we've been saying for months, post (hopefully) pandemic Market Conditions are ripe for you to act in driving business value into your company. If you've ever dreamed of being the budget hero, this is it. With the tumult in the supplier marketplace around M&As, shifts of products to the cloud, small company disruptions, the supplier competition has never been as robust. Once you digest the list below and want more, we're happy to talk. There's nothing we like better than chatting about how to get more value from technology suppliers - especially now. Big Software SAP Nearly 100% of SAP deals come due in December. This is driven by ...
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Like a party no one wanted to go to, the COVID pandemic dragged many IT Executives into (over) spending on technology that was not planned for. In the frenetic pace to ‘keep the lights on’, expenditures were made without the scrutiny they may have normally received pre-COVID. Supporting all the work from anywhere (WFA) initiatives including conferencing, PCs, and remote access software and hardware were all added to the mission critical initiatives already underway, like digital transformation and cloud migrations siphoning money away from those other priorities. As you start planning for your 2022 budgets, you may just now be realizing and ...
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Every IT leader reading this now is overspending 30% to 60% on at least one of their strategic suppliers. Unfortunately, many are overspending on several. How can we know this with such confidence? We’ve been seeing it now since 2002 and it’s the very reason we are thriving today. There are several factors that enable this culture of overspend to get traction inside organizations. Much of it is built on the good intentions of IT buyers simply working to execute their business plans with limited resources. Exacerbating the problem however, are the technology goliaths and their downstream ecosystems, who spend vast sums of money to ensure ...
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Clients often ask how we can stay on top of the market due to its constantly changing nature, and our answer is simple. We are constantly researching and analyzing the market in real-time, availing ourselves of a variety of resources. First among those is our own FMI (Federated Market Intelligence) gathered from thousands of executed deals since 2002. It’s a luxury to have that kind of data to inform Client strategy and optimization. However, we do also frequently vet our own understanding of the market by using a variety of resources, including the major Technology Review Platforms. If you can imagine, there are literally hundreds of ...
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