Success stories: Firms find it pays to negotiate
November 25, 2009 by Steve HannafordPosted in: Dealers & Channel, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Municipal governments and school districts are among the hardest hit in the current recession. And some are finding that one of the smartest ways to save money is through astute bargaining on copier contracts.
Here are two recent examples in the news:
The Galesburg (Ill.) School District, in the face of significant revenue cutbacks, managed to negotiate itself a new district-wide copier contract. Instead of the $210,000 a month they are now paying, they have worked out a contract for $110,000, while add two new machines and getting 3,000,000 fewer copies.
The Meridian School District in Idaho was just about to close a deal on renewing its copier contact with a national company when it got a complaint from a competing bidder. That complaint showed that the vendor’s rejected bid would have saved the district $680,000 over five years. The claim forced the district to re-open its bidding and put in place new bidding practices, and the district is now on course to reap savings of over $30,000 a month.
Now is the time to strike a good deal on copier contracts. The competition is intense, so you can play one dealer off against another. The industry has reached equilibrium, so that all companies are providing pretty good machines with similar features. Think of the issue not as acquitting machines but one of buying pages, and make sure that your dealers can give you a clear cost-per-page figure averaged out through the life of the deal.
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Tags: contracts, negotiation
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