NPI Sees Uptick in Demand for IT Price Benchmarking and License Optimization Services
Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB) May 14, 2015 -- NPI, a leading spend management consulting firm, has reported a sharp uptick in demand for IT price benchmarking and license optimization services in 2015. This increase in demand is being driven by rapid adoption of cloud services across the enterprise IT ecosystem, new licensing and pricing models, and increased audit activity from technology vendors.
NPI’s visibility into IT strategy and purchasing across more than 400 enterprises indicates most companies are increasing their emphasis on best practices in IT sourcing as spend continues to grow for this strategic indirect category. Factors driving the utilization of NPI’s services include:
• Pricing competition for cloud services increased drastically in 2014, and new players are entering the market daily. Companies are seeking rapid, reliable ways to validate best-in-class pricing and business terms.
• Many traditional enterprise IT vendors – including Microsoft and Oracle – are transitioning more of their offerings to the cloud. Additionally, they have made substantial changes to their on-premise licensing and support programs and pricing. Skillful navigation through this licensing and subscription minefield requires access to vendor-specific licensing expertise.
• NPI’s research shows that nearly 30 percent of enterprises experienced an audit by vendors like SAP, IBM and Microsoft in 2014. Unexpected six-figure penalties are common; and sourcing generalists do not have the knowledge or experience to prepare for the audits, or to refute or mitigate the findings.
NPI expects these these trends to continue throughout 2015 and 2016.
“Enterprise IT vendors as well as their customers are in the middle of a big transition to the cloud, and IT sourcing teams want to be armed with benchmark data and license expertise to make sure they don’t overbuy or overspend. Customers are also very aware that when it comes to audits, it’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s a question of ‘when’, and they don’t want any budget surprises,” said Jon Winsett, CEO of NPI.
NPI advises companies to benchmark pricing and terms on every IT purchase to validate fair market value, and carefully align license purchases with demand to prevent overbuying. The firm also advises enterprises to be prepared to negotiate more cloud transition flexibility into contract terms and conditions, and to anticipate audits from their largest enterprise technology vendors.
For more information on NPI’s IT sourcing optimization and audit readiness and defense services, visit http://www.npifinancial.com.
About NPI
NPI is a spend management consulting firm that protects companies from overspending in three cost categories where pricing is opaque, complex and inconsistent – information technology, telecommunication and transportation. Using price benchmark data and vendor-specific cost reduction expertise, NPI helps clients assure that each purchase is priced at or below fair market value and program selection, licensing and business terms are cost-optimized. Reviewing more than 14,000 purchases annually, NPI provides objective oversight for billions of dollars of strategic spend for its clients. To learn more about how NPI can help your company start saving today, visit http://www.npifinancial.com or call 404-591-7500.
Hannah Bower, Bower Communications, +1 404-247-1123, [email protected]
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