Scale & Buy

Getting IT Right the First Time with RampRate Sourcing

Most value at least cost – Better contract terms – Fast, objective, and technically savvy. What’s better than saving buyers hundreds of millions in our optimization practice? Building the right deal with the right supplier the first time around to ensure that you don’t face unforeseen costs, service problems, and supplier conflicts.

That’s why more than a hundred top brands – from Microsoft and eBay through IT-intensive media and gaming start-ups use us to help them find and negotiate new technology supplier relationships

We Are

Technically Savvy – our experts have deep expertise in IT products and services we’re helping you buy
Fast – 80% faster than Deloitte benchmarks for sourcing IT
Objective – with a data-driven scorecard based on fit to your preferences
Transparent and Auditable – to justify your decisions to management/board
Global – covering more than 80 countries with tools to help you find the best location and service
Risk-Free – fewer than 1% of our deals have been terminated early
Great at Finding Best Market Rates – by reducing sales cost on the supplier side and getting custom offers, most of the time we come in at 20% or more below budget
Low Effort – you’re not chased by salespeople or forced to read 100-page RFP responses
Potentially at No Cost – you can choose to have us collect supplier referral fees (transparently disclosed to you), pay us out of savings we generate vs. budget, or pay a flat consulting fee.

We work alongside enterprise procurement and legal teams for IT and business buyers looking to move quickly. We work on the full cycle of the relationship, from needs analysis to identify optimal candidates, to running the RFP and presenting the results for your decision, to negotiations, contract redlines, and closing. And after the deal is done, we stay engaged to ensure the relationship is meeting your changing needs. You own the contract and all decision-making power – we just make it easy.

How Hard Can It Be to Spend Money?

Buying a new IT product or service can trip up even the most seasoned IT and procurement professionals. Here are just some of the mistakes we’ve seen from Fortune 500 and startups alike:

Delayed deployment due to elongated supplier selection, contract negotiation, or installation issues
Choosing the wrong solution type or provider that doesn’t match the underlying business need
Not even contacting the best providers or lesser-known options that are a better fit than the big names
Missing a key tax / regulatory variable that exposes your firm to unforeseen costs
Paying in excess of market rates – or setting an overly aggressive target and getting no-bid that costs time
Underinvesting in a solution or provider that then cuts corners, goes through restructuring or even folds
Signing an inflexible contract that anchors you down as your business changes

Doesn’t My Sourcing / Procurement Team Do This Already?

RampRate works alongside procurement teams to add technical sophistication, supplier relationships, and up-to-the-minute market data in highly volatile markets. Some of our top champions at buyers such as eBay and Nike have come out of strategic sourcing teams looking to hit their savings targets and deploy on time.

I Already Have an External Advisor or Broker. How Is RampRate Better?

We realize the value of good real estate brokers, master agents, telecom expense management firms, and other intermediaries. In fact, we work with most of them as subcontractors or partners.

However, most are not structured or incented in the same way for objectivity and savings, don’t provide the same high-touch consultative deliverables, and are much more limited in their data, technical expertise, and global coverage. That’s why many of them work with RampRate to extend their capabilities. For example:

As supplier-paid entities, brokers and agents have an objectivity gap, and frequently a technical expertise gap as well. RampRate works with them to align incentives properly and inject a deep knowledge of IT infrastructure
Systems integrators and management consultancies are not fast or agile enough, or cost-conscious enough to identify the best solutions quickly. They use RampRate to get past sourcing and onto the bigger picture.
Sourcing advisors and internal procurement use RampRate’s technical expertise and data to set targets, identify the right suppliers, and customize sourcing processes for the specific technology being bought.
Even infrastructure suppliers often bring RampRate in to shorten their deal cycles and reduce sales costs.

If you’re working with an existing intermediary, make sure to ask them these questions to make sure you’re getting the best value. And if you feel like you deserve a better answer, let’s work as a team to do even better.

How Does the Payment Model Work?

As a buyer, you have three options:

1. Supplier-paid – We work with the 1100+ suppliers that we have a uniform referral relationship with. We treat them objectively and reduce their sales time/effort. In exchange, they take the commissions they would pay a salesperson or other partner and use them to fund RampRate’s consulting for you with a uniform transaction fee (typically around 10%% of the spend depending on the specific services purchased)

2. Savings paid – If you have a budget or existing preliminary offers, we can review them and propose a fee that’s a function of how much we lower the rates and how much we improve the contract terms.

3. Flat fee – You can also choose to just pay RampRate a flat consulting fee, with no variability or supplier fees.

What Types of Product Services Does RampRate Advise On?

Direct Coverage

All flavors of hosting, ranging from wholesale data centers to managed hosting and cloud
Public and private cloud computing and storage in IaaS and PaaS delivery models
Data networking, including both IP transit and data transport services such as PLC, MPLS, etc.
Content delivery network services, including core delivery and value-added services
Telecommunications, including switched and packet-based landline and mobile
Server and desktop support services, including remote infrastructure management (RIM)
Software and maintenance services including Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, RedHat, and many other

Our process can be operated in as little as 2 weeks, but generally takes 6-8 weeks to achieve optimal results

1.

Requirements Gathering

Work with our consultants to translate your needs into industry-standard metrics

2.

(Optional) Site and solution architecture

if your requirements are not set in stone, vet them against our location, solution, and architecture selection tools to ensure you’re buying the right service in the right place

3.

Supplier pre-selection

narrow RampRate’s database of 3000+ suppliers/solutions into the 5-7 best-qualified options based on the SPY Index – the most in-depth profile of IT infrastructure providers worldwide

4.

Quote Form

structure all the requirements in a standardized form for suppliers to fill out

5.

The No-RFP sourcing cycle

dictate minimal terms to suppliers based on market conditions and the customer’s leverage and then see which one is prepared to raise the bar the most

6.

Objective scorecard

use your team’s weights married with RampRate SPY Index data and supplier quote responses to stack-rank providers – compressing 100-300 value dimensions into an 8-element scorecard and one final weighted ranking, with a full drill-down to as much detail as needed

7.

Supplier downselect and due diligence

coach your team on evaluating supplier presentations, site visits, reference checks, and financial due diligence to finalize your selection

8.

Implement

ensure that agreed-on rates and terms are in the final contract and, if the project had a baseline expectation, forecast the impact in terms of savings, performance, and risk improvement.

How can RampRate deliver faster deployments? Doesn’t adding another entity lengthen the process?

Most of the time spent in sourcing is on research and dead ends. We have the data upfront and avoid dead ends by getting it right the first time – FAST

What is the relationship failure rate? How can it be so low?

Relationship failure is a contract termination prior to expiration. We avoid it through several layers of protection: (1) due diligence upfront to eliminate bad fits (2) more flexible contracts to adapt to changing business conditions and (3) lifetime support to resolve disputes before they snowball

How can you be objective if you take supplier payments?

The vast majority of suppliers pay us a uniform fee, so there’s no incentive to pick one over another. We disclose that fee to you during the sourcing process and share it with you afterward

So why not just ask providers to charge us less instead of paying you a commission?

For most suppliers, sales commissions are pre-budgeted and will go somewhere. We simply make sure it goes into your pocket.