Methodology

How we measure results

This page exists so the numbers we publish on our home, about, and service pages are verifiable rather than rhetorical. Every claim below is defined, bounded, and auditable.

"500+ engagements"

An engagement is a paid advisory mandate with a defined scope of work — renewal negotiation, audit defense, contract review, licensing optimization, or structured assessment. We count each mandate once, regardless of duration. The cumulative count is maintained across the combined professional history of IT Negotiations advisors, including work performed at prior employers where advisors led the buyer-side engagement. We do not count internal company meetings, marketing calls, or unpaid discussions.

"20+ years experience"

This refers to the longest continuous experience of any named advisor on our team in enterprise software sourcing, licensing, or negotiation. It is not a firm-age claim.

"11 vendors covered"

Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow, IBM, VMware/Broadcom, AWS, Azure, GCP, and a grouped "AI platforms" category (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, and similar). A vendor counts as "covered" if our advisors have led at least 10 engagements involving that vendor's contracts in the last 36 months.

"Senior advisors only"

Every engagement is staffed by an advisor with a minimum of ten years of enterprise software sourcing, vendor-side sales, or licensing-compliance experience. No junior consultants, offshore support, or generalist management consultants are assigned to client work.

Savings and outcomes

Where we cite a savings percentage or dollar amount in a case study or on a service page, the figure is measured as the difference between (a) the vendor's final pre-negotiation proposal delivered to the client and (b) the fully executed contract. Savings exclude opportunity costs, reinvestment benefit, or hypothetical list-price comparisons. Named dollar totals such as "$2.1B+ saved" are cumulative across engagements over the stated time window and are verifiable against engagement files on request under NDA.

Buyer-side only

IT Negotiations does not accept compensation, referral fees, rebates, or MDF funding from any enterprise software vendor, reseller, or channel partner. Our revenue is 100% fee-for-service from the buyer. Advisors are prohibited from holding equity in any vendor we negotiate against during active engagements.

How we benchmark

When we cite a discount floor, an escalator cap, or a clause prevalence statistic ("73% of Oracle ULA renewals include…"), the figure is derived from our own engagement sample over the stated time window. We do not purchase or resell third-party benchmark datasets. We do not extrapolate from public filings.

Updates

This methodology page is reviewed quarterly. Last updated 17 April 2026.