What is it? Why should I do it? How can I do it?
Well first off Benchmarking is the process of comparing your cost of what your organization pays compared to the cost that another organization of the same size pays.
Manufactures offer different prices to same sized organizations. Many contracts that you sign tell you you are not allowed to compare pricing with other companies. And you sign because you want the “good” pricing and also because how the heck are you going to find out what other companies your size are paying? And you don’t want to rock the boat with your manufacture if you ARE getting good pricing. Lots of reasons people don’t benchmark. But the obvious reason that why you should is because there are substantial, SUBSTANTIAL savings.
Being in this industry a super long time I have seen multiple contracts with such extreme pricing. But my job and the job with whatever reseller you are working with is to ensure that you are getting the best pricing that is benchmarked with companies of similar size. Because reseller people with lots of Enterprise Account Experience CAN look and CAN compare. If they don’t have a similar contract in front of them already, they can call the manufacture with similar parts on your existing contract, give them your company size but give a fictous company name etc so they do not look in their system, see the current pricing & only quote off that. You want a FRESH compare, not see what you are already getting. I don’t see anything wrong with this process. What is fair is fair. I just think honestly is important with these large contracts. Lots of money is being spent and being up front is very important.
What obviously happens typically is that manufactures offer an amazing price up front to win business from a competitor & the price slowly or quickly goes up because there is a large install base onsite & they figure it will be a pain in the butt to change out technology for the end user etc. and it is worth paying the extra $. If this is not a problem for you, not a big deal.
But just be aware of it. Word.
