Advisory
Engagement models: how we scope, price, and deliver.
Fixed scope, retainer, audit response, or contingency. The model you pick decides start timing, incentives, and outcome quality. Here is how each works.
Fixed scope, retainer, audit response, or contingency. The model you pick decides start timing, incentives, and outcome quality. Here is how each works.
Redress Compliance runs four engagement models, fixed scope, retainer, audit response, and contingency savings, and the right one depends on whether your problem is a date, a vendor, or a run rate.
Redress Compliance offers four engagement models: fixed scope projects, annual advisory retainers, audit response engagements, and contingency savings programs. Every model is delivered by the same senior advisors; the difference is how scope, duration, and fees are framed.
The subscription programs, Vendor Shield, the Renewal Program, and the Benchmark Program, are productized retainers. They wrap the retainer model around a defined cadence and deliverable set.
The four models at a glance
| Model | Best for | Typical duration | Fee basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed scope | A renewal, audit, or decision with a date | 30 to 90 days | Fixed fee |
| Retainer | Multi vendor estates, rolling renewals | 12 months | Monthly or annual |
| Audit response | An audit letter already in hand | Audit timeline | Fixed plus phases |
| Contingency | Provable baselines, savings sharing | Tied to renewal | Share of savings |
The advisor who scopes the engagement delivers it. Redress does not run a junior leverage pyramid; benchmarks and negotiation positions come from the people who built them across hundreds of enterprise clients.
Fixed scope projects carry a fixed fee agreed before the work starts, sized to the vendor, the spend at stake, and the deadline. Retainers price as a flat monthly or annual fee tied to the number of publisher practices covered. Audit response prices in phases so you never fund work the audit may not reach.
Contingency pricing takes a share of provable savings against a baseline both sides sign before the negotiation starts. The baseline rule is strict because publisher pricing is opaque; what counts as a saving is agreed in writing, against list and against your current run rate, the way Oracle prices from its public price list while discounts hide in the contract.
Hourly billing rewards slow work and punishes direct answers. Every Redress model prices the outcome or the coverage period instead, which keeps the incentive on settling audits fast and entering negotiations early.
Match the model to the shape of the problem. A date problem, one renewal or one certification, fits fixed scope. A portfolio problem, many renewals and constant vendor contact, fits a retainer. A crisis, an audit letter on the desk, fits audit response from the first reply letter onward.
Models convert without renegotiating from zero. A fixed scope renewal that uncovers an audit risk can extend into audit response, and roughly a third of retainer clients started as a single fixed scope project that proved the model.
All major publisher practices, including IBM Passport Advantage estates, Microsoft volume licensing, and SAP agreement portfolios, run under any of the four models. The vendor decides the playbook; the model only decides the commercial wrapper.
Every engagement opens with a baseline phase: entitlements, deployment data, contracts, and the renewal or audit calendar. Analysis follows, then a written position, then the negotiation or defense itself with your team in front and our advisors behind.
Deliverables are written to survive staff turnover. The exposure model, the negotiation record, and the entitlement baseline stay with you, so the next renewal starts from evidence rather than memory.
The standard procurement advice says to run an RFP, pick the lowest day rate, and buy advisory hours like contractor capacity. We disagree. In roughly 80 to 100 engagements Morten Andersen scoped or delivered between 2024 and 2025, the outcomes that mattered correlated with start timing and model fit, never with day rate. An advisor engaged 90 days before a renewal at a higher fee beat a cheaper one engaged at 30 days in every benchmarked pairing. The buyer side move is to fix the model and the start date first and negotiate the fee second. Buying licensing advice by the hour is how you end up paying for a meter instead of an outcome.
Three cuts of our advisory engagement file frame the size of the opportunity.
Source: Redress Compliance advisory engagement file, 2024 to 2025.
Five moves turn this analysis into a lower invoice on the next renewal.
Redress offers four models: fixed scope projects, annual advisory retainers, audit response engagements, and contingency savings programs. The same senior advisors deliver all four; only scope, duration, and fee basis change.
Fixed scope fees are agreed before work starts and sized to the vendor, the spend at stake, and the deadline. There is no hourly meter; one fee covers the agreed deliverables through the renewal or decision date.
A retainer wins when your estate has five or more major publisher renewals a year or constant vendor contact. Retainer clients in our 2024 to 2025 file escalated audits 4 to 6 weeks earlier, which cut settlement exposure by 30 to 50 percent.
Within 48 hours of the audit letter reaching us. Audit response runs on the auditor's timeline, so intake, a communication freeze recommendation, and the first reply letter strategy all land in the first week.
Fees are a share of provable savings against a baseline signed by both sides before negotiation starts. If entitlement data cannot support a provable baseline, we say so and propose fixed scope instead, which happens in roughly 7 of 10 contingency requests.
Yes. Models convert without restarting commercials. A fixed scope renewal that surfaces an audit risk can extend into audit response, and single projects regularly convert into retainers once the first cycle proves the model.
Benchmark your estate against 500 plus enterprise engagements and see which model fits before you commit.
Used across more than five hundred enterprise engagements. Independent. Buyer side. Built for procurement leaders running the next renewal cycle.
The model you choose matters less than when you start. Ninety days out, every model works. Thirty days out, only damage control does.
500+ enterprise clients. 11 vendor practices. Industry recognized. One conversation can change what you pay for the next three years.
One buyer side briefing a week. Pricing moves, audit signals, and the levers that work. No vendor spin.
