Our Clients

Situation

• With a portfolio of shopping Web sites offering a robust price comparison service, Shopzilla sites had attracted over 19 million unique visitors in the US alone by 2009.

• Continued growth coupled with a mission to enable shoppers to find, compare, and buy anything, sold by virtually anyone, anywhere—combined with continued growth in the US and Europe—meant that data colocation would be critical to success.

• Shopzilla had multiple service complaints and contractual issues with its colocation provider in the US, and was concerned that its SLAs and contract terms were inadequate.

• At the same time, Shopzilla needed to identify optimal colo sites in the EU.

• Shopzilla turned to RamRate for help and realized optimization in areas it never thought possible.

Action

• In just 9 weeks, achieved 7-figure savings in mid-contract renegotiation with incumbent colo supplier—equivalent to 28% savings over the previous contract.

• Negotiated and realized strong protections in new contract against the kinds of service level problems experienced in the past.

• Consolidated multiple service orders into one coterminous contract.

• Obtained multiple offers for data center and bandwidth in London during time of scarcity due to Olympics and financial crisis.

• Helped Shopzilla determine that colo in the EU was not necessary, thus saving nearly $2 million in unnecessary colo expense.

Situation

• With 8.5 million subscribers around the globe, Blizzard Entertainment was a huge success in the online gaming industry.

• The record-setting launch of World of Warcraft®: The Burning Crusade™, underscored Blizzard’s transition from a top developer to the unquestioned leader in the “always-on” immersive virtual world.

• But with unprecedented growth in subscribers came exponential growth of player expectations for service uptime and performance. Blizzard needed to continue to meet player expectations despite mounting infrastructure pressures.

• Every dollar spent externally to support the Blizzard audience needed to be allocated for optimal efficiency and effectiveness. RampRate was enlisted to make this happen.

Action

• Delivered 8-figure reductions in colocation and bandwidth costs as well as future leverage through vendor diversification.

• Achieved 20% or more savings from aligning existing contracts while rewriting SLAs to cutting-edge best practices.

• Realized further savings from the identification and removal of unnecessary service components in existing contracts.

• Significantly reduced Content delivery network (CDN) expense by identifying multi-vendor strategy.

• Completed 32 ITO projects within the first year.

• Engaged new vendors rapidly and successfully even when unpredictable growth required very fast expansion.

Situation

• Even as it moves towards its 90th birthday, CBS has never been afraid to reinvent itself. From its split with Viacom, to the growing success of its Web properties such as CBS Sportsline, to hosting one of the largest streaming events in history, the multifaceted media giant has maneuvered and thrived in a challenging, time-critical, ever-changing industry.

• One of these time-critical challenges occurred when CBS was separating from Viacom. CBS had to outsource infrastructure that was previously controlled internally—and it had to do so within specific timelines reflecting the need for complete separation from Viacom within one year.

• CBS engaged RampRate Sourcing Advisors to find the technological solutions that could support its burgeoning online success, and to examine technology relationships for fairness, risk factors, and adherence to market best practices.

Action

• Oversaw a 24% reduction in cost with the same supplier in a hosting infrastructure transaction.

• Used market-leading process to ensure that installation deadlines driven by CBS’ separation from Viacom were met.

• Seven-figure savings compared to prevailing market rates in two concurrent colocation procurement exercises.

• Ensured inclusion of more than 75% of the market’s most stringent SLA provisions in each colocation contract.

• Reduced bandwidth costs by more than 50% by helping CBS move to a new provider in a carrier-neutral location.

• Developed a financial projection tool for minimizing streaming event costs by using multiple CDNs concurrently.

• Identified seven-figure savings in unapplied vendor credits that were added to a software license agreement.

• Negotiated a 50% discount from a vendor’s initial quote to its final quote in a time-pressure environment.

Situation

• At the end of 2010, Constant Contact was a fast-growing leader in providing Internet-based marketing services to small companies.

• It recognized the need to ensure optimal price and service levels associated with a major IT expense–primary and redundant DR (disaster recovery) data centers on the East and West Coasts.

• When Constant Contact engaged RampRate, it wondered if it would end up staying with its incumbent DR supplier.

• The result proved otherwise.

Action

• Constant Contact is projected to save a total of $21.3M over the next 6 years and achieve another $1.9M in intangible benefits.

• Constant Contact’s final costs were 13% below its goal of reaching market 25th percentile rates and 27% below the median of all quotes for West Coast data center space.

• Achieved intangible benefits of single-source provider, favorable location, and ability to build out into a large suite without space constraints.

• Conversion of power charges from per-circuit to metered charges, resulting in an estimated 75% reduction in power costs.

• 225 kilowatts of additional high density expansion space.

• Attainment of both of the above goals without signing a lease longer than 6 years.

• Deferral of rent increases and charges for 4 months, which resulted in savings of approximately $224K.

Situation

• As one of the 20 most highly trafficked websites worldwide, eBay’s need to build out infrastructure to accommodate both organic growth and acquisitions was constant, expensive, and time-critical.
• eBay was well-known in the e-commerce industry as a thought-leader and innovator, creating a distinct competitive advantage through the skillful management and progression of its IT infrastructure.
• Having negotiated contracts superbly for years, eBay had some of the best rates and contract terms in the industry.
• However, each new acquisition added a layer of amendments to eBay’s outsourced data center, network, and CDN contracts, causing a strain on its top-notch infrastructure team, which was being pulled from innovative projects to address contract- and growth-related issues.

Action

• Created 13% savings in restructured data center contract through removal of excess capacity and by replacing custom circuits with standard circuits, while also allowing flexibility for early exit.
• Achieved 16% rate reduction from telecom provider through comprehensive renegotiation of nine-figure contract.
• Achieved 26% cost reductions from strategic WAN providers through route redundancy and uncompromising SLAs.
• Created 22% outsource provider-related savings through contract expiration, while also strengthening eBay/supplier relationships.
• Saved 4,320 hours (two years) of staff time on contract negotiation and management.
• Stronger supplier contract terms with more accountability, flexibility, and fluidity.
• IT team freed up to focus on innovative projects rather than contract-related issues.