Contemplating IT

As the customer you have more leverage in this economy than ever before. At the same time - I am sure you are getting pressure from your management to hold off on spending. However, if you have the money - then now is the time to spend it. In a down economy it is the people with cash that get the great deals.

Naturally I am not promoting wasteful spending money - rather if you have a need then now is the time for you to get the best arrangement you can.

Here are some tips and ideas:

1. Timing does matter. End of month and end of quarter do make a big difference. Everyone knows it and yet we all do the little dance. So do the dance and apply the pressure. They will do the same but remember you have the leverage - it is a buyer's market.

2. Competitive pressure works. Depending on the size of the deal vendors will fight hard to beat their competitors. Again, in this economy pretty much any business is important to them. Having two or three major competitors fighting it out for your business can drive down cost significantly but its hard work. Don't let yourself give up because you are tired. Keeping grinding those wheels - it can make a big difference. It is also important for you to realize that not all competition is equal. On some level every competitor is a threat but there are certain competitors that have near-religious wars with one another. If you can identify the competitors that are arch-enemies then you can leverage that in your favor.

3. Get more for your dollar. Perhaps the overall cost isn't as important to you as other things - e.g. getting more software, services, training and support can be negotiated as a part of the arrangement.

4. Always negotiate additional capacity at the original point of negotiation and any software licenses that may be bounded to additional capacity. Don't wait until you need the capacity - if you do then you lose leverage. Now capacity goes down over time so you have to make sure that you base pricing on a percentage discount off of list pricing. But the point is to get the best discount now and make sure it applies to all future acquisitions.

5. I suggest you read an end user blogger, Storagebod wrote a blog on negotiating storage that has some good insights as well. I suggest you check it out - Deal or No Deal?

6. I think that negotiations should be done with a strong position but not to the point of being combative. I suggest speaking to the vendors with good intentions - "We really want to work with you but we are doing our homework." You also don't want to make the vendor feel like they got a bad deal - because often times it is the sustainable partnership that makes the difference between bad and good and also between good and great outcomes. If you negotiate smartly and firmly then you should wind up getting respect versus being seen as a jack-ass.

7. A couple of other things to consider is being a reference for the vendor. There are two kinds - one that will only talk privately to other potential customers or you can be a public reference as well. You many not be able to get a bigger discount but you will certainly get a lot of attention when a problem occurs in your data center with their products. "Hey, I am a public reference for you guys and I have an interview with the press in an hour to discuss your product but funny it isn't working. Can you help me out with that?" Chances are you won't ever have to vocally use this card but its power is palpable.

8. In my first blog in the Negotiating Storage Part One - I discussed the idea that you should think about other stuff that you need in addition to storage. This is where your channel partner comes in - get them to bundle everything up for you for discounts across the board. But don't forget that all this stuff has to be put together. And often, there are nuances with the storage product with this other stuff that will create walls and delays. Make sure that they storage vendor understands what you are doing and negotiate ahead of time you need their support and experience to help with that other stuff.