When managing your procurement initiatives, you can leverage Sastrify's support and engage our IT buyers in your process through the 'Involve Sastrify' feature. Our procurement team provides the following services that fall within our scope of service:

  • Custom Benchmarking & Contract Review
  • Negotiation & Renewal Support


This article will focus on Negotiation & Renewal Support, providing comprehensive details on what this service encompasses and everything you need to know about it.


IN THIS ARTICLE:

Service Details


Purpose

The purpose of negotiation & renewal support is to represent or support customers in contract negotiations to save them time and ideally achieve a more favorable outcome than without experienced IT Buyer support.


Use Cases

This service includes the negotiation support for existing contract renewals and for new tool purchases. 

It is solely limited to commercial contract subjects, such as: unit prices, discounts, and other commercial non-price related contract conditions.


Sastrify's Approach

A typical vendor negotiation support includes the following aspects:

  • Capturing customers' requirements either via the Sastrify platform and/or a call
  • Preparing negotiation tactics (e.g., benchmarks) and strategies
  • Discussing / negotiating with vendors on behalf of the customers
  • Summarizing negotiation outcomes


Sastrify’s level of involvement in negotiations includes:

  • Sastrify as the lead buyer/ negotiator
  • Sastrify as the supporting buyer while customer is the lead negotiator
  • Sastrify not part of the negotiation calls but providing support with tips, strategies, and benchmarks before or during an ongoing negotiation
  • Depending on the vendor, Sastrify can offer advice on tool alternatives (based on the most frequently used alternatives within Sastrify’s customer database). 


If your Sastrify subscription contract includes a limited number of negotiation support cases, each support case will be counted as follows:

- Every vendor negotiation is counted as one negotiation support. 
- Any quotation request from a different vendor, even if it's part of the same procurement initiative, is considered an additional negotiation.



Requirements

Customers are required to:

  1. Provide a full and comprehensive overview of the status quo of a planned or ongoing negotiation, including most request contracts or quotes and forecasted contract requirements.

  2. Share their desired targets or available budgets, along with any other relevant information. 


Throughout the process, the Tool Owner should be available for questions and feedback.


It's crucial to provide all this information as detailed and clear as possible when raising an 'Involve Sastrify' support request. This ensures that our team has the most up-to-date information to provide you with the best level of support.




RFPs/RFQs

The service encompasses commercial negotiations as part of a Request for Proposals (RFPs) and Request for Quotations (RFQs) process.


The scope and accounting for the project are determined collaboratively by Sastrify and the customer, based on the client's request and RFP complexity. Generally, each distinct vendor proposal request is considered a separate negotiation instance within the contingent.



Disclaimer: 
While Sastrify diligently supports negotiations, it's important to note that no specific negotiation outcome can be guaranteed. Outcomes vary significantly based on factors like prior history with the vendor, timing, volumes, forecasts, the timing of Sastrify's involvement, and even the sales representative involved in the negotiation process.


What you can expect from a custom benchmark request by Sastrify


Customers engaging with Sastrify's buyer service for contract negotiations can expect a tailored approach to represent or support them, ultimately saving time and aiming for more favorable outcomes. 


The approach involves capturing customer requirements, preparing negotiation tactics, negotiating with vendors, and summarizing outcomes. Sastrify's involvement levels vary, from lead negotiator to providing support with tips and benchmarks.


While legal and IT security aspects are not covered, the service includes guidance on Request for Proposals (RFPs) and Request for Quotations (RFQs). Where experience is available, Sastrify provides tips about commonly used tool alternatives that could be helpful as counter quotes in price negotiations.

Not considered within the scope of service

  • Legal or IT security-related contract review and negotiation.
  • Finding and evaluating alternative tools based on a list of functional and/or technical requirements. Sastrify limits its service of providing short-lists of tool alternatives solely and objectively based on its database and the frequency of tools being used by other Sastrify customers.