Full narration of the briefing. Click a section heading to jump the player to that moment.
Eleven briefings, and one idea underneath all of them. A Microsoft renewal is decided by preparation rather than by argument. The discount levels are gone, the suites cost more, support multiplies both, and the agreement itself is only committed through 2027. None of that is fixed by negotiating harder in the room.
It is fixed by walking in with a clean estate, a defensible number and a calendar you control. I am Tom, Daniel is with me, and this last session is what to do on Monday, and where we can help if you want us to.
Three moves you can make this quarter without any outside help, and the first one takes an afternoon. Find three dates and put them where your team can see them: your EA anniversary, your notice deadline, and the date twelve months before it. That third date is when your renewal actually begins. If you renew in 2027, it has probably already passed, and knowing that is worth more than any tactic in this series, because everything else in the programme hangs off whether you started in time.
Move two is the estate file from session four. Purchased, assigned, active, per product, with the annual dollar value of the gap beside each line. Pull it from your own admin centre rather than asking your account team for it, and give it one named owner who refreshes it quarterly. That file is the single most useful artefact in the whole renewal.
It sets your baseline, it sizes your optimisation, it makes a reduction credible, and it turns every conversation from opinion into arithmetic that you brought and they have to answer.
Move three is the do nothing number from session two. Take your current invoice and add the four layers: the discount level reset, the July 2026 suite increases, the product level rises, and support recalculated on the new total. That is what renewing exactly what you hold costs you. Take it to your finance leadership early, because a CFO who hears that number from you months ahead is an ally with time to plan, and a CFO who first sees it in a vendor quote is a problem, usually one that lands back on your desk with very little room left to solve it.
Now the honest part, because those three moves are genuinely yours and you do not need us for them. Where an independent advisor changes the outcome is narrower and more specific. Benchmarks: what comparable enterprises actually pay per unit, which you cannot see from inside one agreement. Pattern: we sit across many of these renewals a year, so we know which concessions are being granted this quarter and which are theatre.
And capacity: most internal teams are doing this alongside a full time job, once every three years, against people who do it every week. That asymmetry is the real problem, and it is the one worth outsourcing.
How we work, briefly, so you know what you would be getting. Redress Compliance is independent and buyer side only. We do not resell Microsoft licences, we take no vendor commission, and we have no incentive that points at a larger deal, which is precisely why our advice can point at a smaller one. On an EA renewal that usually means a benchmark against comparable agreements, a review of the estate and the optimisation levers, a term sheet built for your position, and support through the negotiation itself up to signature.
We can lead it, or we can sit behind your team and let them front it. Both work.
So here is the close. If your Microsoft EA renews in 2027 and you would like a second opinion on where you stand, go to redresscompliance dot com slash microsoft dash e a dash negotiation dash services, or use the contact page, and tell us your renewal month and roughly what you spend. We will come back the same day, we will sign an NDA before you send us anything sensitive, and the first conversation costs you nothing. Whether you bring us in or not, start the three moves this quarter.
That is the whole series. Thank you for watching, and good luck with your renewal.
Redress Compliance works on contingency: our fee is 25 percent of what we save you. Nothing saved, nothing paid. Independent, buyer side only, never vendor funded. Want Redress to contact you? Reach out and we respond the same day.
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