A FTSE 100 financial services institution with operations across 28 countries faced an annual enterprise software spend of approximately $76M — split across Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce, IBM, and AWS. The firm had managed each vendor relationship in isolation, with separate IT, procurement, and finance teams handling renewals as they arose. No single commercial owner had visibility of the full estate.
A new CIO, appointed following a period of significant cost pressure across the firm, initiated a 12-month programme to bring disciplined commercial oversight to the enterprise software portfolio. The mandate was explicit: deliver measurable, documented savings across the top six vendors without disrupting business-critical systems or vendor relationships essential to the firm's ongoing technology roadmap.
IT Negotiations was appointed as the exclusive external advisory partner for the programme. Renewals for Oracle and SAP were already active; Microsoft, Salesforce, and IBM renewals were 4–8 months away. AWS had no formal renewal structure but had identified cost optimisation as a priority. Our team began with a full estate assessment before deploying vendor-specific specialists to each negotiation track.
"We had six major vendors who each thought they were our most important relationship. IT Negotiations showed us how to use that dynamic — and the results across every single vendor exceeded our expectations."
— CIO, FTSE 100 Financial Services Institution (identity protected)The programme ran six concurrent negotiation tracks, each managed by a dedicated IT Negotiations specialist. Here is the outcome across each vendor:
The multi-vendor programme required a fundamentally different structure than single-vendor engagements. IT Negotiations deployed a programme director to coordinate the overall estate view alongside six vendor specialists — each with deep expertise in their respective vendor's commercial model, pricing methodology, and negotiation playbook.
Phase 1 — Full Estate Assessment (Weeks 1–6). We began with a comprehensive assessment of all six vendor relationships — reviewing existing contracts, entitlement positions, usage data, renewal dates, and historical negotiation outcomes. This produced a prioritised opportunity map: a ranked view of where savings potential was highest and time pressure was most acute. The Oracle and SAP renewals were already in-flight and became the immediate priority. The Microsoft, Salesforce, and IBM tracks were sequenced to enable preparatory workstreams before their respective renewal windows opened.
Phase 2 — Parallel Negotiation Tracks (Months 2–8). Each vendor track was managed independently by its specialist — but the programme director maintained cross-vendor visibility. This enabled a key strategic advantage: we could reference the firm's overall commercial posture with multiple vendors simultaneously. Vendors were aware, through our advisors, that they were competing for spend with peers — a dynamic that produced more commercially motivated responses at deal desk level than any single-vendor negotiation could achieve in isolation.
Phase 3 — Consolidation and Documentation (Month 9). All six agreements were finalised and documented with standardised commercial terms reporting — giving the new CIO a single-view dashboard of the firm's enterprise software portfolio, renewal calendar, and commercial protection provisions. For more on how IT Negotiations structures multi-vendor programmes, see our multi-vendor optimisation service and vendor management advisory.
The nine-month programme delivered $22M in documented annual savings across all six vendors — a 29% reduction on the combined pre-engagement spend — with no disruption to business-critical systems and no degradation of the firm's commercial relationships with any vendor.
Beyond the financial outcome, the firm gained a complete documented view of its enterprise software estate for the first time — including a forward-looking renewal calendar covering the next 36 months, contractual protections standardised across all six agreements, and a vendor management operating model that the CIO's team could operate independently going forward.
The programme was subsequently cited by the CIO in the firm's annual report as a key contributor to the year's technology cost reduction target. It is among the largest single-programme savings outcomes IT Negotiations has delivered — and a demonstration of the compounding value of addressing multiple vendor relationships simultaneously. Download our Negotiation Playbook and CFO Software Spend Guide for the frameworks behind this type of programme.
"Having one advisory team managing all six vendor negotiations simultaneously — with full visibility of our commercial position — was transformative. No internal team could have done this at the pace and depth IT Negotiations delivered."
— CPO, FTSE 100 Financial Services Institution (identity protected)Free guides on multi-vendor optimisation and enterprise software spend management:
Dealing with Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce, and cloud vendors simultaneously is where the biggest savings opportunities hide — and where internal teams are most stretched. Our multi-vendor programme delivers results across your entire estate. Book a free consultation.
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