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Splunk negotiations are becoming more challenging, especially for large enterprise customers. NPI’s IT sourcing advisors share three tips to help you negotiate a better deal.

Enterprise software vendors are increasing audit activity with their largest customers. NPI’s software audit specialists share what you can do to prepare.

Gain insights into IT vendor management best practices to cut costs. NPI offers expert strategies and solutions for efficient and cost-effective IT procurement.

Learn the importance of software license audit preparation. Discover best practices for your next software license compliance audit.

Understand the IT procurement process, and discover best practices to excel in IT procurement. Empower your IT buying team with NPI.

NPI Year in Review 2024. The trends and accomplishments that shaped our business in 2024.

Microsoft’s updated definition of “External Users” is here. Here’s what enterprise customers need to know.

NPI’s IT purchasing experts share how enterprise customers can mitigate Oracle Java SE cost increases.

NPI CEO Jon Winsett joins The Sourcing Industry Landscape podcast to discuss IT procurement trends and challenges. Listen here.

How can enterprises avoid overspending during their next PC refresh cycle? NPI’s IT buying experts share advice for the Fortune 500.

In a recent gathering of our Customer Advisory Board, IT procurement executives from Fortune 500 enterprises shared insights into the trends and challenges shaping the IT sourcing landscape. These discussions offer a snapshot of the pressures and opportunities they face heading into 2025.

The world of IT procurement is gearing up for a major transformation by 2030. In the coming years, IT procurement will step into the spotlight as a strategic powerhouse, influencing technology decisions that drive business success. These emerging trends promise to reshape how organizations approach IT sourcing, bringing procurement teams closer to the heart of business strategy and ensuring they are essential players in the digital future.

Salesforce negotiations are complex and overspending is common. NPI’s Salesforce cost optimization specialists share their top tips.

By adopting a proactive “T-minus X” approach, where “X” is the preparation time needed for optimal results, IT sourcing teams can significantly improve their negotiation outcomes

Discover how Procurement Market Intelligence for IT procurement helps you get more value from vendors, cut costs, reduce risk, and provide a competitive edge.

Get proactive steps to reduce VMware renewal pricing, build an effective negotiation strategy against higher VMware pricing, and optimize VMware license costs.

Compare the Microsoft Enterprise Subscription Agreement and EA to find the best licensing option for your business needs and IT strategy.

A common refrain at NPI is that enterprise IT procurement practitioners have one of the toughest jobs in corporate America. Today’s IT sourcing pros are responsible for aligning business strategy, technical requirements, budget, vendor selection, and negotiation among very different groups of stakeholders – each of whom have their own agenda and expectations.

Enterprise software agreement negotiations require three things: up-to-the-minute supplier and negotiation intelligence, diligent preparation, and introspection. But what does that look like in practice?

What does effective SaaS management look like for enterprises? Learn how your company can leverage best practices for SaaS cost management.

Over the last 21 years, enterprise IT procurement has emerged from the shadows and into the spotlight. Today’s IT procurement practitioners manage the largest, most important category of indirect spend. How well they manage that spend isn’t just important – it’s critical to the success of their organizations.

One of Bill Gates’s first emails to the newly formed Microsoft included an aspirational goal of “a computer on every desk and in every home.” That ambitious vision led Microsoft for the first forty years of its existence. With new leadership comes new visions, though, and Satya Nadella recently stated, “We are the Copilot company. We believe in a future where there will be a Copilot for everyone and everything you do.”

Get the most out of your ServiceNow contract negotiation with 10 practical tips to help you secure better pricing and terms. Learn more!

The NPI team never misses an opportunity to connect with the IT procurement community. Over the past few weeks, we’ve attended the Procurement Foundry’s Forge: Tech Sourcing conference and ProcureCon IT Sourcing 2024. Here are five key takeaways from these events:

For Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings, companies will spend an estimated $273.5 billion in 2023 and over $900 billion by 2030. Unfortunately, most will overpay at a staggering rate. Within large enterprises, 30% or more of total SaaS spending goes to unused licenses and features. Even when customers buy only what they need, they’re often paying prices that are above best-in-class rates.

Discover IT cost reduction strategies for enterprises, from optimizing SaaS licenses to managing cloud costs effectively from NPI.

Learn software license management best practices to streamline compliance, reduce costs, and boost efficiency in your IT environment.

The demands being placed on IT procurement teams have reached a fever pitch. The volume of transactions that must be managed at any given time has exploded. The speed at which those transactions have to be executed in order to meet the demands of the business is accelerating.

Discover how to create a foolproof SaaS spend management strategy to minimize cost waste. NPI’s SaaS spending experts share best practices.

The introduction of Microsoft Fabric and phasing out of Power BI Premium Capacity licenses are examples of why enterprises must stay ahead of Microsoft’s licensing changes. NPI’s Microsoft cost and licensing experts share more.

When you consider that IT spending in 2023 topped $4.6 trillion globally and is forecast to reach $5.1 trillion in 2024, making sure you manage your IT budget effectively and get a fair price for what you’re buying is crucial.

With cloud migration growing rapidly, companies are spending a lot more on SaaS platforms. Gartner forecasts SaaS spending to top $232 billion globally, growing at a rate of nearly 18% annually.

Learn how to prepare for Oracle audits, navigate the Oracle license audit process, and avoid costly Oracle software license audit penalties.

Microsoft is no stranger to antitrust investigations, but the latest inquiries coming out of the European Union have given the tech industry (and some Microsoft customers) pause. If you’re not already familiar with Microsoft’s antitrust investigation history, here is a quick primer:

The enterprise telecommunications marketplace has undergone significant transformations over the last 25 years, influenced by technological advancements, regulatory changes, and evolving business demands. During that time, the market has transitioned from analog to digital technologies.

Enterprise IT buyers are no stranger to software price increases these days as most vendors have raised rates on incumbent solutions to drive revenues higher. In some cases, the scope of these rate hikes is justified given external economic factors like inflation and supply chain disruptions. But there are other times when the scope is beyond justification. Smartsheet’s recent price increases are a good example of the latter.

What should you consider when choosing SaaS licensing for your enterprise? Leverage the fundamentals to reduce costs.

Today, NPI announced some exciting news. Falfurrias Growth Partners, a leading private equity fund focused on growth-oriented businesses, has made a significant investment in our business. This marks a pivotal moment in NPI’s journey. It enables us to accelerate our growth trajectory and delivery of new AI-powered solutions that are purpose-built for helping IT procurement practitioners secure world-class IT purchase outcomes.

Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Teams Premium in February 2023 to much fanfare as well as a few criticisms. While the debut of several AI-powered features were received enthusiastically by some enterprise users, the vendor also stirred frustration when it announced some features that were previously free in the standard edition would now only be available in Teams Premium.

IT sourcing is the process of obtaining IT products and services from a third party, such as a supplier, to support a business's operations.

On November 22, 2023, Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware leaving many wondering what the impact would be at a customer level. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on perspective, they didn’t have to wait very long.

In September 2023, Cisco announced end-of-sale and end-of-life dates for its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution. The last date to order the product will be September 11, 2024, and software maintenance releases and bug fixes will no longer be issued after September 11, 2025.

On a monthly basis, Microsoft can change the use rights and offerings for their license agreements and these changes can be found on their Product Terms page. This page isn’t very intuitive, and changes are often hard to spot.

Despite the critical nature of IaaS and PaaS, it’s not uncommon for customers of the industry’s largest hyperscalers (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) to overlook some of the fine print in contractual business terms. One example is the “end of term” clause in AWS and Google Cloud agreements. The verbiage should set off alarm bells for anyone in enterprise sourcing, legal, or risk management.