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Contract Negotiation

Contract negotiation / renegotiation is a key step in your relationship with third parties from whom you buy services and products. It will set not only the terms, but also the tone of the relationship for years to come. Alsbridge provides negotiation services for outsourcing contacts for IT infrastructure services, application support and development, business processes and cloud services as well as network negotiations, hardware negotiations and software negotiations.

Depending on your organization's capacity, capabilities and preference Alsbridge can lead or support negotiations. We can engage in the process at any stage, whether you are about to enter into network negotiations with a new carrier or interested in renegotiating your outsourcing contract with an existing provider. We know what terms your provider will accept because we have negotiated with all of the leading providers before across hundreds of engagements. We are equally as skilled at dual negotiations as single thread and are accustomed to working with both in-house counsel and external legal teams. Alsbridge enjoys good working relationships with most of the world's leading law firms and is able to provide your organization with information on each.

Below are some triggers that indicate a need for contract negotiation services from Alsbridge:

• My company has never negotiated a contract for this type of service or product before
• I'm frustrated by the lack of transparency involved in buying services from my provider
• My provider seems unwilling to move off key points that seem reasonable to us
• I'm unclear how to get the service level commitments I need at the price I want
• My company needs to move fast, but we don't want to sacrifice quality or incur too much risk
• I'm not sure how whether the contract terms we have will ensure operational success
• I want to ensure that we get a fair market deal without making negotiations too adversarial

As a sourcing advisory firm, contract negotiations are something Alsbridge consultants do all day every day. And we do so for a specific set of products and services (e.g., outsourcing contracts, network negotiations, etc.) that your internal resources may only negotiate contracts for 2-3 times per year. We leverage the following to your advantage:

• Our methodology provides consistent, repeatable results having been honed over 1000s of negotiations
• Contract analysis tool for iterative assessment against best practices and market standard terms
• Templates with standard T&Cs for MSA, SOW and SLAs to accelerate the process
• Our people are not only sourcing experts, but also SMEs in the services/products being negotiated
• Our pricing databases and benchmarking capabilities ensure you get a fair market price
• Many of our consultants previously worked for major providers giving us insider knowledge

Alsbridge was ranked the #1 outsourcing consulting firm in the world by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) based on the value delivered to our clients. We advised on over $5B in outsourcing contract value in 2011, and our team is actively consulting on 20-25 outsourcing relationships at any given point in time. Since our founding in 2003, we have advised on hundreds of outsourcing contracts for the world's leading companies – and not a single one of the relationships we've helped establish before term. Alsbridge is also the #1 network sourcing advisory firm in the world by transaction volume. We average 100+ full network negotiations per year plus approximately 50 ancillary engagements. Alsbridge placed over $1B in telecom contract value in 2011, and our team is actively negotiating 25-40 network carrier engagements at any given point in time.

We are not broad, generalist consultants but rather niche experts in sourcing this set of products and services. We help our clients to establish sustainable, mutually beneficial relationships by building internal stakeholder consensus, fostering a collaborative process during provider selection and advising our clients on internal changes needed to optimize the way they work with their providers. Our database has more data, our team has more experience and our methodology ensures consistent outcomes. Engaging Alsbridge for contract negotiation will ensure you get a better deal in a shorter time with the right partner providing the optimal scope of services for a fair market price at the quality level you need.

Contact us today to learn more about how Alsbridge can help you achieve your objectives.