Independent. Buyer side only. We sit on your side of the table when you negotiate, renew, or defend an audit with the world's largest software publishers. No reseller margin. No vendor sponsorship. No conflicts.
Redress Compliance is an independent, buyer side enterprise software licensing advisory firm. We were founded in 2018 by senior enterprise negotiation executives who had spent years inside vendor sales floors, audit teams, and reseller channels. We left because we saw a structural conflict that nobody on the buyer's side of the table seemed willing to fix.
The largest software publishers in the world spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year training their salespeople, audit teams, and partner channels to extract value from your contract. The advisory firms that most enterprises hire to push back against those tactics are usually paid by the same publishers, or by resellers who depend on those publishers for product margin and rebates.
We are not. We do not resell software. We do not take vendor sponsorship. We do not earn referral fees. We do not hold any partner status with any of the publishers we advise on. Every dollar of our revenue comes from the buyer.
That single decision shapes everything. It shapes the playbooks we build, the leverage points we identify, the language we use in audit response letters, and the recommendations we deliver in negotiation strategy memos. It is also why our advice is, in our experience, materially different from what you will hear from a Big Four firm, a vendor partner, or a reseller masquerading as an advisor.
We advise global enterprises on every commercial event that involves a major software publisher. That includes always on audit defense under Vendor Shield, renewal program management, contract negotiation strategy, license position reviews, true up defense, ULA exits, RISE migration economics, EDP commitment sizing, M365 stack rationalization, and post merger contract harmonisation.
We cover eleven vendor practices: Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Salesforce, IBM, Broadcom and VMware, AWS, Google Cloud, ServiceNow, Workday, Cisco, and the GenAI vendors including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google AI. Each practice is led by a partner with a vendor specific background.
We work in three modes. First, embedded retainers where a partner sits inside your software asset management or procurement function as an extension of the team. Second, project work tied to a single negotiation, audit, or renewal. Third, our always on advisory subscription, Vendor Shield, which gives global enterprises partner led cover for every contract negotiation, benchmarking question, renewal cycle, cost optimization opportunity, and audit notification across the eleven major publishers.
The buyer side advisory market is small and the rules of engagement are not always obvious. There are three categories of firm that look superficially similar to us, and one structural difference that matters.
Big Four consultancies have software asset management practices, but they also audit those same vendors on behalf of the publisher. The conflict is structural and it is disclosed in their engagement letters. We do not run vendor audits. We only sit on the buyer's side.
Reseller advisory teams often advertise independent licensing advice. The economics tell a different story. Reseller margin and rebates from the publisher fund the advisory team. The publisher knows it. The advice is, in practice, calibrated to keep the publisher relationship intact.
Boutique software asset management firms are usually the closest analogue to us. The differences here are coverage and depth. Most boutiques specialize in one or two vendors. We run eleven full vendor practices, every one of them led by a partner with a decade or more inside that publisher's ecosystem. That breadth matters when a single client portfolio touches Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, ServiceNow, AWS, and three GenAI suppliers in one fiscal year.
We have delivered more than five hundred engagements since 2018. We are industry recognized. Our partners bring more than twenty years of combined enterprise negotiation experience. We hold no vendor partner status with any publisher we advise on. Our work has been cited in deals at Fortune 500 retailers, global banks, manufacturing groups, healthcare networks, federal agencies, and sovereign wealth funds.
Selected outcomes are documented in our case study library. They include a Fortune 500 retailer that exited an Oracle ULA with seventy two million dollars of certified compliance value, a global bank that took twenty five percent off its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and added audit protections that did not previously exist, a German automotive manufacturer that negotiated a phased SAP RISE migration while avoiding an indirect access claim, and a healthcare network that re sized its ServiceNow estate by thirty eight percent at renewal.
The 2025 to 2026 commercial cycle has changed the rules. Microsoft has raised list prices on the Enterprise Agreement. Oracle has accelerated Java SE audit activity and pushed its universal subscription model. SAP has hardened its RISE migration commercial framework and tightened indirect access enforcement. Broadcom's acquisition of VMware has compressed perpetual license customers into subscription bundles with three to ten times the prior run rate. AWS, Google Cloud, ServiceNow, and Workday have all pushed harder on multi year commitments and pre paid spend.
At the same time, GenAI procurement has appeared on every CIO's desk with no playbook attached. Most enterprises are signing six and seven figure commitments with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google AI using contracts the legal team has never seen before. The combination of vendor pressure and category novelty is the most expensive procurement environment we have seen in twenty years.
That is the environment we built Redress Compliance for. If you are facing a renewal, an audit, a migration, or a major new commitment in the next twelve months, we should talk.
Vendor Shield is our always on buyer side advisory subscription. Global enterprises pay a fixed annual fee in exchange for partner led cover across six pillars: contract negotiation, benchmarking, renewal strategy, vendor advisory, cost optimization, and audit defense protection. Every renewal, every new purchase, every audit notice, and every commitment recalibration is handled by our partner team without a per engagement fee.
We have delivered Vendor Shield to clients in financial services, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and the public sector. Our average client renews their subscription for three or more years.
Inside Vendor Shield →We hired Redress because we needed someone who would tell us when the vendor was bluffing. They did, on day three. We saved seventeen million dollars in the next ninety days.
Most clients begin with a single project. Many move into Vendor Shield within the first twelve months. Some retain a partner inside their procurement or software asset management function as a permanent extension of the team.
We do not push you into a particular shape. The right shape is the one that maps to your renewal calendar, audit risk profile, and internal capacity. We will tell you on the first call which mode fits your situation.
Scope an Engagement →
If a renewal, audit, or major commitment is on your desk, the next step is a 25 minute call. No follow up sales pressure unless you ask for one. Mutual NDA available before any commercial details.
Monthly intelligence on enterprise software vendors, audit risk, and renewal economics.
