Four advisory models. One works for you.

You already know the pattern. A senior team sells you the software. Expert engineers in the scoping sessions. Regional VPs on your side. Everyone pitching in. The contract is signed. The team is reassigned. Six months in, you are dealing with a different, more junior team. And if you are unlucky, you are also dealing with an audit team from the same vendor.

This is not laziness. It is the output of a specific incentive structure. Understanding the structure explains the behaviour. And choosing the right advisor is the difference between spending what the vendor wants and spending what the market actually charges.

The data is not subtle

Flexera's 2025 State of IT Asset Management report, published June 2025 and based on responses from 506 global IT professionals, found that 45% of organisations spent more than $1 million on software audits in the past three years. Twenty-three percent spent more than $5 million on audits in 2025 alone. Microsoft audited half of all respondents. IBM audited 37%. SAP 32%. ServiceNow 21%.

These are the largest enterprise vendors. And they audit their own paying customers at scale.

Meanwhile, visibility into the IT estate is moving the wrong way. Only 43% of respondents in the same Flexera report said they had complete visibility across their technology stack, down from 47% a year earlier. Thirty-five percent say SaaS waste increased over the past year.

The gap between what you bought and what you actually use is widening. The vendor knows. You often do not.

CIOs are already reassessing

The 2026 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey, based on 2,501 CIOs and technology executives globally with data collected in May and June 2025, found that 50% of CIOs outside the United States anticipate changes in vendor engagement due to regional factors. One in three non-US CIOs is increasing focus on vendors in their own region.

The Gartner framing is about geopolitics and data sovereignty. The broader truth underneath it is simpler: half of global CIOs no longer assume their current vendors are still the right ones.

When the market starts questioning vendor relationships at that scale, it is worth asking the question yourself.

The four models

If you want help negotiating with your vendor, you have four real options. Each has a different incentive structure, and the structure predicts the behaviour.

The reseller-advisor model. Advisory services from firms that also earn commission on the software you buy. The advice is usually free. The margin comes from the transaction. If your spend goes up, their revenue goes up. This is the dominant model in the market. It is not bad faith. It is just how the pay works. Independence is not possible when the same firm earns a percentage of the outcome they are advising on.

The big consultancy model. Senior advisory billed by the hour, delivered as a project. The engagement ends when the project ends. The senior partner in the pitch is often replaced by a more junior team during delivery. The firm is not incentivised to stay. It is incentivised to close the next engagement.

The software platform model. Tools that give you visibility into your software estate. Very good for SaaS sprawl, expiring contracts, and flagging underutilised licences. Less useful for the actual negotiation with an enterprise vendor's account team. A dashboard does not sit across the table from a sales director. A dashboard does not carry the experience of a senior negotiator who has been across Microsoft's licensing models for over 20 years.

The independent advisory model. Paid only on verified savings. No commission on software sold. No hourly billing. The firm earns when you save. If it cannot save you money, you pay nothing. The incentive is aligned with your outcome by construction.

Three of these models have a legitimate use somewhere in your procurement stack. Only one is structurally aligned with you on a software negotiation.

What alignment looks like in practice

In our exclusive APAC partnership with Adept Technologies, we deliver procurement advisory. Adept does not resell software. Its fee is a percentage of verified savings only. The audit itself is free. If it cannot deliver savings against your current agreement, you pay nothing. The person in your Letter of Authority meeting is the person who negotiates your final terms. No handoff. No reassignment.

Adept brings benchmark pricing data from enterprise licence negotiations across comparable EMEA and APAC markets. Not list price. Not published rates. Actual negotiated pricing from similar deals. Across the engagements we have run together, the average saving against the vendor's opening position is 19.5% per annum.

The common thread is simple: the incentive does not flip at signature. That should be baseline. It is not.

Two questions to ask yourself

If you want to stress-test your current arrangement, answer these two questions honestly.

Who is in the room for the negotiation? Who is in the room six months later? If the answer changes, the incentive changed. You now have a candidate for what changed it.

Does your advisor benefit when you spend more? Or when you spend less? If the answer is "more," they are not your advisor. They are a sales channel with a better name on the business card.

If you have an Enterprise Agreement renewal, an Oracle true-up, or a broader software procurement question in the next twelve months, start with our assessment. Five questions. Two minutes. No obligation, no sales pitch. Just the numbers.

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