I’ve previously recommended that you cancel your maintenance contracts. This is an effective way to save some money, but also quite risky if you don’t have the necessary support infrastructure in place. A safer alternative would be to not automatically renew the contracts, but instead insist on better terms and try to obtain multiple proposals to find the best price and value.
A recent example of this is from Europe’s largest engineering conglomerate Siemens, which canned their SAP support at more than €30 million a year in support charges for its 160,000 users. Instead Siemens opted for SAP support from another vendor at a much lower price. CMS or Enterprise Portal maintenance contracts don’t run into these figures; nevertheless, there may well be room for significant cost savings in your budget.
Several companies specialise in providing maintenance and support and might be able to provide better service at a rate lower than you are currently paying.
If you have a maintenance contract with a digital agency or some other implementation partner, it should be easy to attract other companies to bid on the contract. It is also customary to have maintenance contracts in place directly with a software vendor, typically running at an annual cost of upwards of 10 % of the original software license cost. You should also try to either renegotiate or replace these.
Other than making a fat cat a bit unhappy slightly miffed and investing a little time, I can’t think of any disadvantages to renegotiating your maintenance contracts.
Feel free to share any tips or success stories below.
Good luck!
