① Core service · License negotiation
Your vendor negotiates mainframe agreements every week. You face them once every three to five years. We close that gap: 500+ engagements, $180M+ in mainframe spend negotiated, and a 20 to 35% typical reduction on renewal spend.
Mainframe renewals are engineered to close on the vendor's terms. The quote typically arrives late, priced against a capacity baseline you never validated, with an uplift justified by a price list you cannot benchmark. IBM raised list prices across most offerings by roughly 6% for 2026, Broadcom (CA) renewals commonly open with double digit uplifts, and BMC suite agreements quietly drift away from what you actually run.
The pattern is consistent across publishers: the vendor controls the clock, the data, and the comparison set. Negotiation outcomes change when the buyer takes all three back. That is the engagement.
Common openings we are hired into
Four steps, run in sequence, ideally across a 12 to 18 month runway. The method is the same whether we sit visibly at the table or work invisibly behind your team.
The method
The vendor's negotiators lose their information advantage. Every claim about your consumption gets tested against your own validated data. Every "standard" term gets compared against the agreements we see across the market. Every deadline gets renegotiated the moment it stops serving you.
Across 500+ engagements and $180M+ in negotiated mainframe spend, the typical outcome is a 20 to 35% reduction against the opening renewal position, plus the structural protections that keep the next renewal honest. We are paid by clients only, never by vendors, so the only number we optimize is yours.
Each publisher runs a different playbook, so we maintain one for each. Start with yours:
Publisher negotiation pages
Related services: renewal advisory when the clock is longer, contract review before you sign anything, and audit defense when the letter has already arrived. For the timing math, read the 18 month renewal runway.
⑦ 48 hour mobilization