Plus a 3-Part Data Protection Negotiation Strategy

5 Practical Tips For Protecting Your Business Priorities With The Right Agreement

Let’s get right to it: price is not pricing when it comes to many technology contracts. Pricing is the basis for determining the price you pay. Simple, not easy. After you and your team get past the “warmth” of the proposal evaluation, the contract comes. That’s often when things get considerably colder. Here are 3 tips for revealing the real price in complex technology contracts.

It’s no secret the hot spot for savings within healthcare organizations has become their extensive purchased services and outsourcing agreements.  While the supply savings rock has already been turned over and squeezed for every dollar, many untapped savings are lying within an organization’s purchased services contracts.  However, the biggest challenge in finding savings in purchased services is discovered as soon as the analysis begins, “…how do I even know if this is a good deal?”

Year after year Seprio meets with current and prospective customers to talk about their organization’s savings goals.  Each customer is unique in many ways, however everyone’s initiatives have the same unit of measure, dollars.  .

Answer the questions and keep track of your score to see how you stack up.

Achieving contractual success in a volatile marketplace like healthcare requires the vision to continually shape and guide the negotiation process.  In lock step, one needs to be able to foster and keep a positive vendor / customer relationship, but still drive the desired outcomes. This needs to be done despite the obstacles that are in your way (high switching costs / restrictive contracts) and the obstacles that are placed in your way (vendor imposed conditions) after your goals and objectives are defined.

To meet an annual goal is the daily grind, but what about sustained multi-year cost savings? Producing savings in the operational expenditures is an important first step, however what about setting up your organization’s contracts and pricing for success from the beginning?

It’s difficult to say how many times we’ve been asked this question, more than 100 probably even more than 1,000.  Back in the “old Microsoft days…” the licensing schemes were so complex that it was literally necessary to map a 6 year strategy in order to completely optimize a licensing program.  This isn’t the case anymore, nor is it with the other large box software/services companies either.  While it seems very trite, the devil really is in the details.  Too often organizations see these spends happening so frequently that they never take the time to get their arms around it as a collective organization.

In a traditional benchmarking setting a customer can research a catalog number, part number or even model number of the item being purchased. The research can take place on a platform as simple to access as the internet, or as complex as 3rd party research organizations that allow a customer to view the most recent purchases within a specific industry. Using either methodology will yield results consistent with one single outcome: price comparison. Again, for a commodity this is a simple bellwether check to see if one is in fact “getting a good deal.”

Seprio has been negotiating purchase agreements on behalf of their customers since 2000. These agreements span all kinds of spend categories and industries. With that kind of diverse experience and analysis of the results, we find a common thread through it all… savings. 

It’s no secret that healthcare’s investment in technology has lagged other industries. Banking, financial services, insurance, online commerce, and even manufacturing have outshined the healthcare industry for many years. While primary advancements and investments have been made around medical procedures and equipment, the ongoing struggle for the industry will be supporting the ever present belt tightening while continuing to be more efficient and effective for the customer’s sake. 

Seprio has been negotiating purchased services contracts, inside and outside of healthcare since 2000. Sure the GPOs will advertise their abilities to assist with purchased services, however, the proof is results and savings driven. Seprio work in healthcare has always been in IDNs that already have a GPO presence and at times even a GPO consulting presence in purchased services. So the question abounds…how does Seprio differ?