What to Look Out for When Negotiating with ERP Providers like Oracle & SAP
Do you know how to protect yourself and stay in the driver’s seat during contract negotiations so that you won’t be held ransom by your ERP provider?
In this article, we’re going to outline the top things you need to take into consideration when negotiating contracts with Oracle, SAP, and any other ERP system.
We’re going to share with you the key terms to clarify in your contracts to avoid extra costs and substantial frustrations down the road.
What to Look for in an ERP
While no company has a crystal ball to know exactly what the future will look like, you do need to identify how you’d like your business to function over the next 10 years.
Why 10 years?
Typical business roadmaps project as far as 3-5 years in the future. Most ERP systems relationships last a minimum of 10 years. You need to know how your business will function in order to know what you’d even need an ERP for and what it would need to do.
You need to be risk-averse in your contract negotiation in order to cover your bases for what could happen.
Once you have your future vision in place, you’ll look at the supplier landscape. Compare what each of the top ERP systems providers offers and how it’ll meet your needs outlined above. Create a Supplier Decision Matrix and stack each contender against it to determine which is the best for your corporation.
Once you know which ERP software is right for your corporation, you’ll need to dig deep to really figure out the total ownership cost. This is the tricky part and is best handled through careful contract negotiation, financial analysis, and service management.
Key Things to Consider When Negotiating an ERP Software Contract
The contract is the most important factor when determining the total cost of ownership of the ERP and there are generally only two triggers for renegotiation once a contract is in place.
These triggers are: mergers & acquisition activity and contract renewals.
Providers know that you don’t read ERP contracts every day. They design contracts in complex and ambiguous ways, which leads to more revenue for them - and more fees for you.
Each of the following points needs to be specifically addressed and outlined in your contract to prevent your ERP from holding you ransom at various times over the course of your relationship.
Pay Attention to Intellectual Property Ownership
Many ERP contracts will state that any systems or processes developed while using the ERP are now Intellectual Property (IP) owned by the ERP provider.
We worked with a customer recently in the manufacturing industry. They had developed a process for creating their materials more efficiently going through the production line. According to their contract with their ERP provider, it shows that any process that you develop using the ERP software can be considered ERP owned IP. As such, we needed to carefully negotiate the situation with the ERP provider so as to not cannibalize the newly found process improvement which led to millions in positive P&L impact (new revenue and cost savings).
In a contract, you need to be very clear who owns the rights of process improvements as far as when it may directly or indirectly utilize an ERP system.
Your ERP is the backbone of your business. As such, if properly set-up and integrated throughout your organization, it touches most if not all aspects of your business. Naturally, this complicates any opportunity to disentangle from that ERP.
If Oracle, SAP or any other provider wanted to play hardball, they could say any process improvement that utilizes an ERP system could be co-owned or sole-owned by that ERP. If this is the case, the provider could take that process and then go sell it.
In fact, one of our recent clients had this happen to them based on not properly reading the contract years ago. They needed to retain our expertise and a major law firm to seek litigation with that specific provider.
Make it very clear who owns what when negotiating your own contract. It needs to be clear that the client owns all IP that are developed for the benefit of their company.
Be Smart About Your License Cost Model
Everyone knows ERPs cost a lot. New contracts with smaller providers will often undercut themselves for the first year or two but will see a massive uptick in years 3-8 because the ERP knows it’s incredibly difficult to leave an ERP once you’re integrated into it.
The cost models of ERPs vary depending on the makeup of the customer’s business and what will be the most profitable for the provider.
Some of the pricing models include:
- Seat-based: Typically the number of humans who log in to the system. These licenses can be either Perpetual or SaaS based.
- Site-based: Number of physical locations, etc.
- Consumption Based: Number of processes, inputs, etc., into the tool.
- Value Based: The newest model within the marketplace and yet the scariest of all. A cost associated with the perceived value of using the platform within your business.
Generally speaking, seat-based pricing is the most cost-effective for companies looking at ERPs, but this depends greatly on what your 5-10 year plan looks like to know which would be the most beneficial to you.
In addition to your unit cost, there could also be annual maintenance expenses. This acts like an annual expense and is generally a percentage of your perpetual license fee/net spend with the ERP.
There are 2 ways to host an ERP system:
- On-premise: Software that is loaded on the servers you’re in control of.
- Software as a Service (SaaS): Software is hosted in the cloud by the provider.
Either way, you need to be careful how you license a product because if you don’t have control of consumption and volume-based metrics, it can skyrocket your costs.
Know Your Audit Rights
This is one that gets people in trouble a lot. Generally speaking, Oracle and SAP will not proactively limit access or connectivity to your ERP. This almost always is the responsibility of their customer, based on their unique needs.
As such, these providers will contractually allow themselves unfettered access to your ERP environment with the intent of auditing the usage of their software.
The most common areas of audit risk are:
- License compliance (Using more seats/volume/etc than you are paying for)
- Architecture compliance (Too many API connections, etc.)
- M&A compliance (Acquisitions, divestiture, subsidiary utilization)
Depending on your unique situation, you may be subject to all three (or more) risk areas. It’s important to know there is intentional ambiguity by the software providers in how one could interpret contract language related to permissible use.
Furthermore, we find that clients have no intention of noncompliance within any area but find it most difficult to monitor and govern the area of architecture compliance. A common example of routine noncompliance when a client links their ERP system to both development and production environments.
Similarly, if an ERP is connected (in anyway) to a client’s CRM system it may also trigger a non-compliance event for both architecture and license compliance due to the fact that a client almost always has more active users within a CRM environment. Those CRM users may be somehow benefiting from the ERP and well, we’ll leave it to your imagination based on what you’ve already learned from this article.
Over the last 10 years, large ERP providers like Oracle and SAP have been focused on audit rights within a client's environment. Specifically, when an ERP is living within a client’s infrastructure (on-premise) it’s technically infeasible for the provider to proactively monitor license compliance.
As such, these providers are inserting audit right language within to client’s contracts (both new and old) providing the legal authority to conduct random audits of a client’s environment. The providers deploy both human and technical based tools. The technical tools include running scripts that “listen” to your environment.
These scripts are developed by the provider themselves and are programmed in a way to identify every single endpoint. The output of the script’s analysis is a single report that identifies ways in which the client is potentially non-compliant. This automatically places the client in a defensive position leading them to try and disprove any sort of non-compliance allegations.
These guys make huge revenue by running these audits and identifying non-compliance. Architecture based non-compliance is most often the most profitable audit for a provider. In addition to what we’ve already stated, another risk area is when your ERP is connected to other systems outside of your current infrastructure.
In a nutshell, every time you make a connection between your ERP and another outside platform (often done through APIs), the ERP provider may identify this as a missed charge and will charge you retroactively since the connection was initiated. This can easily develop into millions of dollars of new revenue for the ERP providers (with very healthy sales commissions).
Not only with the ERP provider monetize the API connection with an API charge but will also try and push value-based pricing.
For example, a client is connecting different systems together (using APIs) - this is the backbone of how their systems work. It is going to help them go to market faster.
The ERP provider is arguing the fact that “you are going to get an extra 20% increase in value from the system now vs what we quoted you. As a result, we are going to increase your fee by 20%.”
Value-based pricing is risky because these providers can charge for new API connections, new acquisitions, product launches, and/or the output of the tool and how it can help you run your business. It’s based on potential and not necessarily even realized revenue!
Don’t let a provider run a script inside your environment. If they don’t have access to your information, you’re in control of it and you remain in the driver’s seat.
Have Clear Merger & Acquisition Language
Put specific clauses in the contract that make it very clear what happens if you are acquired or if you acquire someone else.
More often, it is the provider who offers this language. These companies will put in very loose language to say ‘if this happens, we will talk about it’ which leaves a lot of area for ambiguity.
To best prepare yourself for any situation, we recommend you place specific and measures or language in your contract that outlines the cause and effect for the most common situations.
Specifically, you’ll want to identify what happens if you are acquired or if you acquire a separate entity. Within any of these situations it’s important to have clear legal language regarding the rights of your company. From a commercial perspective this means having specific pricing thresholds.
Simply put, If you are acquired, you take the better of two prices. You take the best price of both until you, as the newly combined customer, want to renegotiate.
If you are acquiring a company, it’s important to insert legal language allowing you to renegotiate the contract immediately or rather simply adding the newly acquired entity into your existing contract with only a reasonable increase in fees. From a commercial perspective it’s important that you outline what (if any) additionally fees would be subject to the transaction.
You want to eliminate ambiguity. From a pricing standpoint, you want to make this as clear as possible.
Set Expectations About Subsidiaries
You also want to know the specific parties of the agreement. A common hiccup for companies is that they don’t have subsidiary language in their ERP contracts. A company like Coca-Cola, where each product line acts as its own subsidiary, could be in default of the contract by letting that subsidiary use your system without proper language.
This is something people don’t think about until your provider comes to you and says, ‘Hey, by the way, your other subsidiaries are using this ERP software. Happy you are doing it, but that is not part of your contract so here is a bill for another million dollars.’
Third parties—suppliers, vendors, non-employees—need to be defined in the contract as well. If third parties are allowed to act on your behalf, there shouldn’t be any additional fees for them to use your system.
Be Sure to Outline Price Protection
Another thing you need to consider when negotiating your contract is price protection. Generally speaking, companies don’t write in any sort of price protection year-over-year.
What that means is that over the contract term, your ERP provider could change the price points of your unit costs at any given time.
It is not just about being clear about locking in your price at contract term, it is also putting a cap on the amount of increase that can happen at the next contract renewal, which needs to be aligned to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
A general rule of thumb is that the increase shouldn't exceed 3-5% at renewal.
Include Clear Terms Around Your Service Level Agreement (SLA)
An ERP is a critical piece of software for any corporation and yet we often don’t negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs). If ERP systems go down, it can shut down governments and grids. It is a critical software within companies for good reason.
Make sure that you have the best service level agreements and governance agreements by specifically outlining them in your contract. Including these will ensure that your provider keeps their service at 99.99% performance.
In addition, there needs to be penalties for an ERP provider not meeting or exceeding their Service Levels that you agreed upon in your contract.
Most contracts will put in language about penalties but most companies don’t catch ERP providers when they are starting to fail. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars left out there because no one said “Hey your service was down over the weekend. That creates a $200k payment because it has been down for X hours.”
If a big company hires an IT governance professional to monitor that, that professional will likely be ROI positive. You pay them $130k salary and then get $250k-400k in fees coming back from the ERP provider.
Along with keeping an eye on the service levels internally, you need to put the ownership on the ERP provider to send you reports of the performance versus making you have to monitor if it was working correctly. You should put the onus on the ERP provider versus on your employees.
The big providers won’t allow this very often but the smaller ones will. Make it the obligation of the ERP provider to know that there has been a breach in the SLA.
The big ones, like SAP and Oracle, will send automated reports and humans have to look into them to see if there is an issue.
Don’t Forget Cybersecurity and Intrusion Detection
You need to be careful that if you get hacked, you don’t owe your ERP provider or are legally obligated in any other way to pay a hacking fee. This is called indemnification.
In matters of cybersecurity and hacking, your contract should stipulate that the ERP provider should be accountable, if possible. There should be financial and legal obligations, and your ERP software provider should be responsible for any sort of intrusion into the system—especially if it’s located in the cloud.
The concept being that if someone hacks your environment, the source code from the ERP could be opened to the black market for rip off and resell.
People don’t look out for this enough and hackers are getting more sophisticated every day.
Know the Rules About Implementation Partners
Implementation partners are third parties that will help develop custom code on top of the ERP system for your business.
Most of the time, your contract states that any implementation partners have to be registered as “Preferred Providers” for your specific ERP software.
You can’t have just anyone build custom code on top of an ERP system, it has to be an approved vendor.
It is a contractual risk to your company if your contractors are not certified by your ERP provider.
Your E-Commerce System Needs to Play Nice
If your company is in eCommerce, you need to make sure that there is an active and working connection between your ERP provider and your eCommerce provider.
Many ERPs will tell you “Don’t worry, we will make a connection.”
What they won’t tell you is that the connection they make will cost YOU more money. Your contract needs to dictate who is accountable for paying for any connections that are required for your eCommerce platform and your ERP system to play nicely together.
We always make the new piece of software that is connected to the ERP system pay for the API. It is the third party’s cost.
We just had a client that we saved about $500k for this very point!
They have an ERP system and they were working on getting set up with an eCommerce platform.
There was one sentence in the contract that made it ambiguous on who pays for the cost of being able to have different systems to talk to one another.
The ERP software provider was planning to charge it back to the client and the client didn’t even assume that would be their cost.
That basic API connection should not be your cost to maintain and pay for - stipulate in the contract who is responsible (ideally the third party) ahead of time so you aren’t stuck with a huge bill.
Make Sure You Have Coterminous Contracts
Another big thing to look out for is coterminous contracts. In most large companies, each department will have separate contracts with an ERP provider and these contracts won’t align on the same termination date.
If you have multiple business units in a company, the provider will often split out their budget and license fees per business unit.
This is the biggest trick in the book and the largest companies in the world forget to do this step.
It creates massive chaos because you can’t get everyone on the same page. This situation forces the client to align internally at multiple times throughout the year in the interest of representing the entire company. Clients typically lose 10 - 20% when they are in a non-coterminous environment. .
If you you are subject to an non-coterminous environment, then the ERP provider is in the driver’s seat. They will divide and conquer you. This is called a split requirement and they will negotiate with each department individually.
In other words, the ERP software provider negotiates at a business unit level versus an enterprise level. At enterprise level, you have volume and leverage to get better terms which typically drives an additional 10-20% in value.
In Conclusion
Whether you’re negotiating an initial contract or a renewal, make sure you develop and maintain a total cost of ownership view.
First, make sure you understand how your business will be growing over the next 10 years.
Then, dissect the contract so that you better understand the unit cost and connection fees.
In the contract, layout all potential possibilities early as opposed to being forced to react to them as they come along. The more prepared you are, the better you’ll be able to handle surprises, pivots, and conflicts.
Make sure that in the contract, each of the specific points outlined above are detailed with zero ambiguity. Hit all these points as a minimum.
The truth of the situation is that the sales representatives at these ERP providers know you aren’t negotiating an ERP contract everyday. While we’re not saying that every ERP sales representative leverages this face in a malicious manner, it’s important to understand how to protect your company.
As you can see, there is a lot to take into consideration when negotiating contracts with ERP providers. Keeping these points in mind will help you to protect yourself and your company. If you need help implementing any of the above, we have the experience and know-how to protect you from being held ransom now and 10 years down the line. Reach out to us, we’re here to help you with negotiating contracts with your ERP provider.
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From Fortune 500 giants to fast-growing innovators, TNG has helped clients save 20% – 40%+ on enterprise software contracts — even when they thought it was impossible
Are You Making These 5 Fatal Mistakes with Your Salesforce Enterprise License Agreement?
Your Salesforce Enterprise License Agreement (SELA) could be costing you millions more than it should. While these multi-year deals promise predictable pricing and enterprise-grade support, they're riddled with traps that can drain your IT budget faster than you can say "CRM transformation."
As someone who's seen countless enterprises stumble through salesforce renewal negotiations, I can tell you that most organizations make the same critical mistakes, and pay dearly for them. Whether you're a CIO planning your next renewal or a CFO trying to control spiraling software costs, these five fatal errors could be sabotaging your bottom line.
Mistake #1: The Baseline Trap, Overcommitting Based on Inflated Projections
Here's how it usually goes: Salesforce looks at your current usage, adds a "growth buffer," and locks you into user counts that seem reasonable today but become millstones tomorrow. This baseline trap is the most expensive mistake you can make in salesforce contract negotiation.
The problem? You're committing to licenses you may never use, and your per-user pricing gets locked at rates based on inflated projections. I've seen companies commit to 2,000 users when they realistically need 1,200, just because their sales rep painted a rosy picture of "inevitable growth."
The Fix: Negotiate growth as an option, not a requirement. Structure your SELA so you commit to baseline usage (say, 1,000 users in Year 1) with optional tiers that trigger only when specific business events occur: like a new subsidiary acquisition or product launch.
For example: "Client commits to 1,000 users in Year 1. If the European expansion launches by Q2, user count increases to 1,200. Otherwise, Year 2 renews at 1,000 users with the same discount structure."
Mistake #2: Ignoring Overage Penalties and Price Escalations
Most executives focus on the upfront discount and completely overlook two budget killers hiding in their SELA: overage fees and automatic price increases.
Salesforce charges overage fees at current retail pricing: often 2-3x your negotiated rates. Exceed your licensed user count by just 10%? You're paying full retail for those extra seats. Meanwhile, most SELAs include automatic 7% annual price increases that compound over multi-year terms.
I recently worked with a Fortune 500 company that discovered they were paying $400,000 annually in overage fees: money that could have funded their entire digital transformation initiative.
The Fix:
- Cap annual price increases at 3% maximum (better yet, negotiate them out entirely)
- Pre-negotiate true-up rates at your discounted SELA pricing, not retail
- Build in a 90-day grace period for overages to avoid surprise charges
- Require monthly proration for any mid-year additions
Mistake #3: Accepting Zero Transparency in Pricing
Traditional Salesforce agreements show line-item pricing for each product. SELAs? They bundle everything into a fixed-fee structure that makes it nearly impossible to understand what you're actually paying for.
This lack of transparency isn't accidental: it makes price manipulation during renewals much easier. Without clear visibility into per-product costs, your procurement team can't effectively benchmark pricing or negotiate specific components.
The Fix: Demand a comprehensive License Entitlement Matrix upfront that includes:
- Product SKUs and specific feature tiers
- User allocations by business unit
- Clear limitations and exclusions
- Baseline metrics for salesforce benchmarking against industry standards
Don't accept vague product bundles. If Salesforce won't provide transparency, that's a red flag that their pricing isn't competitive.
Mistake #4: Signing Away All Contractual Flexibility
SELAs are rigid by design. Once signed, you cannot scale down user counts, change product mixes, or adjust to business realities. If your company decides mid-contract that you only need 500 licenses instead of 1,000, tough luck: you're paying for all 1,000 until renewal.
This inflexibility becomes especially problematic during economic downturns, restructurings, or strategic pivots. I've watched companies pay for thousands of unused Salesforce licenses while laying off employees.
The Fix:
- Negotiate true-down clauses allowing 10-15% user reductions at renewal without penalties
- Structure deals as 2+1 years (two firm years plus a one-year extension option) rather than hard three-year commitments
- Include mid-term checkpoints at 18 months to reassess volumes and usage
- Ensure all product add-ons co-terminate on the same renewal date
Mistake #5: Falling Into Product Bundling Traps
Salesforce loves bundling products together to justify bigger discounts, but these bundles create dangerous dependencies. Your contract might stipulate that dropping Tableau causes your Sales Cloud discount to revert from 50% to 30%. Every product becomes intertwined, making optimization nearly impossible.
I've seen companies stuck paying for Marketing Cloud licenses they never use because unbundling would eliminate their discount on Service Cloud: creating a perpetual cycle of waste.
The Fix:
- Keep product terms independent: losing one product shouldn't affect pricing on others
- Use bundles strategically for initial discounts, but retain the right to separate components at renewal
- Document clear exit strategies for each bundled product
- Negotiate that discounts carry over when breaking bundles into standalone renewals
The Documentation Mistake That Costs Millions
Here's a bonus mistake that underlies all the others: relying on verbal promises from Salesforce sales reps.
"We usually don't enforce that clause." "We'll work with you if that situation comes up." "Trust me, we're flexible on overages."
If it's not written in your contract or order form, it doesn't exist. Period.
The Fix: Demand that every concession, promise, and "understanding" be documented in writing. If your sales rep claims flexibility exists, prove it by adding contract language that guarantees it.
Taking Control of Your Salesforce Investment
These mistakes aren't inevitable: they're the result of approaching salesforce enterprise license agreement negotiations without proper preparation and expertise. The key is treating your SELA like the multi-million dollar strategic decision it is, not just another software renewal.
Before your next negotiation:
- Conduct a thorough contract risk review of your current terms
- Benchmark your pricing against industry standards
- Assemble a cross-functional team including IT, finance, procurement, and legal
- Document your actual usage patterns and realistic growth projections
Remember, Salesforce's sales team negotiates these deals every day. You might do it once every three years. The playing field isn't level unless you have the right strategy and support.
Your SELA should be a strategic enabler, not a financial anchor. By avoiding these five fatal mistakes, you can maintain the predictability and enterprise features you need while protecting your organization from unnecessary costs and inflexible terms.
The stakes are too high to get this wrong. Make sure your next Salesforce negotiation puts your organization in the driver's seat, not the passenger seat.
Need help navigating your Salesforce renewal? Our enterprise contract renewal specialists have saved organizations millions in unnecessary software costs. Learn more about our saas negotiation consulting services.
Salesforce Renewal Negotiations: 7 Vendor Tactics That Will Cost You Millions (And How to Counter Them)
Let's cut to the chase: Salesforce didn't become a $30+ billion company by accident. They've built a renewal machine that's incredibly effective at extracting maximum value from enterprise customers: often at your expense.
If you're a CIO, CFO, or procurement leader heading into a Salesforce renewal negotiation, you need to understand exactly what you're walking into. Because here's the uncomfortable truth: your Salesforce rep isn't your partner. They're a highly trained professional whose compensation depends on growing your contract value.
We've helped hundreds of enterprises navigate Salesforce contract negotiations, and we've seen every play in their playbook. Here are the seven tactics that cost organizations millions: and exactly how to counter each one.
Tactic #1: The Timing Trap
Salesforce will reach out months before your renewal: not to help you plan, but to control the conversation before you've had time to assess your actual needs. They'll frame this as "getting ahead of things" or "ensuring a smooth renewal."
Meanwhile, they're identifying upsell opportunities, understanding your budget cycle, and positioning themselves to apply pressure when you're most vulnerable.
The Counter-Move: Start your internal renewal planning 6 months before your renewal date. Audit your current usage, assess alternatives, and build executive alignment before Salesforce initiates contact. When you control the timeline, you control the negotiation.
Tactic #2: The Inflated Baseline
Here's a number Salesforce hopes you never discover: their initial renewal quote typically starts around 10% above your current spend: before any "negotiation" even begins.
Some of these increases are obvious (new list prices, added users) while others are buried in contract language and other means. The goal? Anchor the conversation at a higher number so that any "discount" they offer still results in you paying more than you should.
Furthermore, it's important to understand that your Salesforce AE has a 10%+ revenue uplift target at each renewal which creates an automatic conflict when you're trying to save money. If your account is a "flat" renewal from the previous contract year with no sign of new products/licenses/etc. then you'll be handed over to the renewal desk. This team is compensated differently with the ultimate objective of never allowing your account to decrease below your current spend. Naturally, this team is incentivized to ensure there is 5% revenue growth.
The Counter-Move: Conduct a thorough license audit before engaging. Many organizations discover they're paying for Premium editions when Standard would suffice, or carrying licenses for users who left the company years ago. Our Right Price Benchmarking™ service consistently reveals that enterprises overpay by 20-40% simply because they never questioned the baseline.
Tactic #3: The Automatic Uplift Clause
Buried in your Master Service Agreement are automatic renewal and price increase provisions. These clauses can escalate your costs by 3-7% annually: without any renegotiation, without any added value, and often without you even noticing until the invoice arrives.
The Counter-Move: Scrutinize your MSA for these provisions immediately. Calendar your renewal dates with 6-month advance alerts. When you do renegotiate, explicitly address these clauses and push for caps on annual increases or elimination of auto-renewal terms entirely.
Tactic #4: The True-Up Surprise
True-up clauses sound reasonable: you pay for what you actually use. In practice, they're a landmine waiting to explode your budget.
Without careful tracking, you might add users throughout the year thinking you're within your allocation: only to receive a six-figure true-up invoice at renewal. Salesforce counts on organizations losing track of their usage, and they're rarely wrong.
The Counter-Move: Implement quarterly internal audits to track actual usage against your contracted terms. Better yet, negotiate true-down rights into your contract: the ability to reduce licenses if your needs decrease, not just pay more when they increase.
Tactic #5: The Bundle Trap
This is one of Salesforce's most effective plays. Your rep will offer a "significant discount" on your renewal: but only if you bundle it with additional products, users, or support tiers you didn't ask for.
"I can get you 15% off, but only if we include Marketing Cloud in this deal."
Suddenly, your "discounted" renewal costs more than your original contract, and you're locked into products you may never fully deploy.
The Counter-Move: Flip the script. Bundle your own negotiation asks strategically. Combine price discussions with user alignment, unused license returns, true-down rights, and multi-year price caps. When you present a comprehensive counter-proposal, you gain leverage instead of surrendering it.
Tactic #6: The Support Plan Squeeze
After your initial contract term, Salesforce will push hard to maintain: or upgrade: your Premier or Premier+ support plan. They'll cite "business continuity" and "access to expertise" as justifications.
Here's what they won't tell you: most organizations' support needs drop dramatically after the first year. Your admins get trained. Your users figure things out. The urgent tickets become routine questions.
The Counter-Move: Reassess your support plan annually based on actual ticket volume and complexity. Many enterprises can safely downgrade from Premier to Standard support after their initial term, saving significant budget while reducing upsell pressure from the support team.
Tactic #7: The Middleman Mirage
Your Salesforce account executive seems like your advocate. They're friendly, responsive, and always willing to "go to bat for you" on pricing.
Here's the reality: your AE has almost no authority to offer meaningful discounts. Real decisions happen at the SVP & EVP level in conjunction with Salesforce's Business Desk: a team you'll never meet directly. Your rep is an intermediary who controls the flow of information in both directions, and that information asymmetry benefits Salesforce, not you.
The Counter-Move: Develop clear, logical, outcomes-oriented messaging and ensure everyone your rep contacts delivers it consistently. Document everything in writing. When you hit a wall, escalate directly to the Business Desk through formal channels rather than relying on your rep to "see what they can do." This practice is an art and not a science...we have perfected the practice at TNG.
The Preparation Equation
Here's the framework that separates enterprises who get crushed in Salesforce renewal negotiations from those who walk away with favorable terms:
Spend 75% of your time on preparation. Only 25% on the actual negotiation.
That means:
- Building a comprehensive Salesforce CRM Solution Blueprint (specific editions, feature sets, user counts, and measured value for each application)
- Conducting honest internal assessments of what you actually need vs. what you're currently paying for
- Researching competitive alternatives: not necessarily to switch, but to establish credible leverage
- Aligning your executive team on priorities and walk-away points
Without this preparation, you're bringing a spreadsheet to a gunfight.
Why Impartiality Matters
At The Negotiator Guru (TNG), we don't sell Salesforce. We don't resell licenses. We don't take referral fees from vendors. Our only interest is getting you the best possible deal.
That impartiality is why our Right Price Benchmarking™ data is trusted by enterprises across industries. We know what companies like yours actually pay: not what Salesforce says companies pay.
When you walk into a negotiation armed with real benchmark data and proven counter-tactics, the dynamic shifts. Suddenly, you're not reacting to Salesforce's playbook. You're executing your own.
Ready to Take Control of Your Next Renewal?
Salesforce renewal negotiations don't have to be a losing battle. With the right preparation, the right data, and the right strategy, you can counter every tactic in their playbook and protect your organization from unnecessary spend.
If you're facing a Salesforce renewal in the next 6-12 months, now is the time to start preparing. Check out our Salesforce vendor spotlight for more insights, or explore our enterprise contract renewal solutions to see how we can help.
Because in Salesforce contract negotiation, the prepared win. Everyone else just pays the price.
Inc. Magazine Unveils Its First-Ever List of the Midwest’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies— The Inc. 5000 Series: Midwest
The Negotiator Guru Ranks No. 15 on the inaugural 2020 Inc. 5000 Series: Midwest
NEW YORK, March 25, 2020 – Inc. magazine today revealed that The Negotiator Guru is No.15 on its inaugural Inc. 5000 Series: Midwest list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Midwest economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses.
“We’re honored to be recognized in the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in the Midwest,” said Dan Kelly, Founder and Senior Partner. The Negotiator Guru also ranked #2 in the state of Minnesota and #5 in the category of Business Products and Services. “Our success is a direct result of the value we’ve delivered with, and for, our global enterprise client base. Congratulations to the TNG team!”
The companies on this list show stunning rates of growth across all industries in the 12 Midwest states. Between 2016 and 2018, these 250 private companies had an average growth rate of 360 percent and, in 2018 alone, they employed more than 27,000 people and added $13 billion to the Midwest’s economy. Companies based in the Chicago, Detroit, and Cincinnati areas brought in the highest revenue overall. Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Series: Midwest, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria, can be found here starting March 25, 2020.
“The companies on this list demonstrate just how much the small-business sector impacts the economies of each Midwest state,” says Inc. editor in chief Scott Omelianuk. “Across every single industry, these businesses have posted revenue and growth rates that are beyond impressive, further proving the tenacity of their founders and CEOs.”
About The Negotiator Guru
The Negotiator Guru is the leading advisory firm for Salesforce contract negotiation. Our team of Senior IT Sourcing Experts provides industry leading IT contract negotiation services for a global client base. Clients engage us to source, negotiate, and manage highly complex IT contracts, transactions and suppliers. Through our deep business understanding and senior expert negotiation skills, we work closely with clients to deliver immediate and long-lasting financial impact to all stakeholders.
Founded in 2015, The Negotiator Guru is a private company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For more information, visit www.thenegotiator.guru. More about Inc. and the Inc.
5000 Regional Series
Methodology
The 2020 Inc. 5000 Regional Series is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2018. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons.
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About Inc. Media
The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
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