When it comes time to renewing rates or raising rates annually or per contract, keep the following items in mind to improve your profitability and help you negotiate a better or a win-win deal.

• Communicate Proactively – Communicate upcoming changes to the customer well ahead of the time as you’ll need to negotiate. Don’t just blindly put a contract in front of the customer expecting them to sign it. Give plenty of heads up to the customer about upcoming rate changes 6 mo ahead of the anniversary
• Discounts, Investments – Review past discounts, investments and consider if any legacy or prior deals that no longer apply should be revised
• Cost of Living Adjustments, CPI – invoke those terms on annual basis as permitted by the contract
• General Rate Increase – invoke annual rate increase as permitted by the contract
• Level Ups – if any of your resources received promotions, certification, education levels, additional experience, etc. consider charging different rates for those achievements
• Shadows – if you have any shadow resources on the team consider making them billable or rotate out of the projects, if possible, without jeopardizing delivery
• Team Workload – if you have any un-billable Project, Delivery Managers, etc. consider making them billable
• Rate Card – review if any other locations should be adjusted, add additional roles, bands, disciplines, locations to make ratecard encompassing of all your services that you now offer
• Team Re-Org, Restructure, Optimize, Rotations – rebalance the team, restructure, consider rotating out senior or other resources which are unprofitable or looking for other challenges, etc.
• Grandfather, Effective Dates – You may choose to roll out increases gradually as prior SOWs expire. If you’re still re-negotiating rates and/or MSA but need to execute SOWs, then put language into SOWs stating that once MSA/ratecard is renegotiated, the new rates will go into effect e.g. 6 mo into SOW term or immediately when new MSA is effective

Have this table as your guideline during deal negotiations, on items that are relevant. Keep track of deal points and history of counter offers as the deal progresses until you reach final terms and execution.

You can also use this format (vertical columns) for your Legal team to provide a short summary of deal points after their first readout of the MSA so you can walk through each one with your Legal, Customer and close it out.

	Customer Proposal (date x)	Customer Counter Proposal (date y)	Your Proposal (date x)	Your Counter Proposal (date y)	FINAL TERMS
Additional Notes
Pricing
Rate Card (include full rate card with all disciplines, locations, monthly rates, hourly rates)
Rate Discounts
Discounts, Volume Discounts, Schedule
Rate Increase Language (go for automatic 5% YoY). ELSE, default to COLA, CPI
LoL, Limitation of Liability
Termination for Convenience, Cause
Acceptance Criteria
Warranty
Payment Terms
Penalties
At Risk Amounts
ARA %
Indemnities
Ramp Up/Down Plans (e.g if customer terminates, you’d like to negotiate to roll off team in waves e.g. 30 days 25% of team, next 30 another 25% of team, etc.)
Subcontractors (make sure you can work with Subcontractors, keep it Business to Business so you are not required to pass flowdowns to Subcontractors)
Locations
SLAs
Security, ODC Requirements
PHI, PII
BAA
Audit Requirements
Non-Compete
Non-Solicitation
Removal of Personal
Transition, Knowledge Transfer Cost
24×7 Support
Any Innovation Types Incentive Program/ Earn back

• Have proforma for every deal
• Rates Modeling – Request CM, AM model from Finance team
• Assign someone to assist with merging, creating, aggregating multi-location ratecards
• Keep in mind any model is probably ~5% or more off, e.g. you miscalculate Account Management cost, Direct Expenses, investment resources, reimbursable Expenses, wrong salaries ranges, EUR/USD conversions, etc.
• Include volume discount formulas and bands that can be adjusted
• Discount – Have one cell where you can input % discount and it will reduce rates by that %, one for onsite; use another field to discount offshore in bulk
• Rate Increases on Annual Basis – have a separate input field for that
• Model should be Multi-year
• Salary Increases – With input where you can increase salary by e.g. 2% each year for more accurate forecast. Must include b/c every year salaries rise
• Salary – have input for salaries so you can overwrite them. Include standard salaries in the initial model
• Vacation – include VAC/ILL % of time
• Expenses – include line item to control Reimbursable and Direct Expenses
• Account Manager cost – make sure to have it included
• Onsite/Offshore Growth % estimate (e.g. anticipate resource counts to grow 25%) – have a field to input %
• Include e.g. 5% CPI or Rate Increases YoY on multi-year deal especially if it’s Fix Bid or Managed Service/Support (if that deal is locked for multi-year, your pricing must include XYZ% raises YoY, otherwise you’re locking a 3 year deal with 3 year old prices)
• Blended Rate – output field to show blended rate AND/OR blended rates PER each ROLE row e.g. some locations have knows blended rate ranges to hit, also some customers have blended rate ranges to be within for their budgets, KPIs for team composition, balance
• Monthly/Hourly rates – have the ability to switch between monthly vs. hourly rates
• Include options e.g. drop-down box with different locations tiers so you can model 2-3 locations e.g. Delivery is done only in US, Offshore, Hybrid (onshore, offshore)
• Add actual people names to resource plan model, if known, to understand real cost
• Have resource plans that model $5M, $10M, $15, $20M scenarios
• Currency – include currency drop down to make adjustments and to have input field for rate conversion. Include USD, EUR, and Country Specific
• Have the ability to add additional people, roles to the resource plan

How do you “move the needle” on the opportunities, generate new ideas, new deals, achieve revenue targets, etc.? Try the following.

Account Plan, Commitments

• Set top 5-10 Priorities to achieve per account
• Build a joint Account Plan with your internal team and customer. Preview the plan with your customer.
• Set commitments for Key Wins in fiscal year
• Activities should lead to results, not activity for sake of activity
• Don’t focus on WHY it CAN’T be done. Figure out WHAT CAN be done.

Research

• Research the company, industry, look at recent technology deals customer made to understand drivers and triggers
• Look at potential projects in flight or on the roadmap
• Read Annual Report, CEO Letters to Investors, check out Investor Relationship section on website, watch quarterly analyst calls with CEO, etc.
• Research leads to reach out to, opportunities, technology, partners, pain points
• Research new executive/key contacts, relationship to make, identify potential leads. THEH…
• Execute marketing campaign e.g. direct reach out via email, warm intro via Email or LinkedIn, email campaign with one pagers, etc. Leverage Business Development team.
• Research & Discovery on competitors (incld. their wallet share). See where they’re failing.

Build Pipeline

• Identify a Pipeline of Opportunities and Next Steps to close
• Identify Pursuit Team to help close it e.g. involve Delivery Solution Practices, Competency Centers
• Map contacts/ppl inside org to technology topics and assign pursuit teams to them

Communication Plan, QBRs

• Must Have Recurring Communication Plan with customer stakeholders. See “Build a Communication Plan”
• Conduct QBR (Quarterly or Semi-Annual Business Reviews) with Stakeholder, Execs

Briefings, Meet, Travel, Face Time, Roadshows

• Show up, Face to Face, Meet, Travel, Walk the Halls
• Offer briefings, roadmap, overview, capabilities
• Offer to meet with your Company’s Execs, CEO, Heads, etc.
• Invite for Executive Briefings in US, EU, APAC or offshore Delivery Locations
• Roadshows to evangelize and brief customers on Company’s services, capabilities, strategy.

Relationship Building

• Build relationship & meet people. With stakeholder peers and their management, their execs
• Get introduced to key stakeholders (ask for recommendation from existing stakeholders, ask who else we should be talking to about XYZ services we offer)
• Invite Customers to Social Events e.g. lunch, dinner, Company events, industry shows, etc.
• Map contacts/ppl inside org that you need to meet and figure out how to meet them via intros, campaigns, direct introduction, direct email, stop by their office, etc.
• Map some of your Company’s executives to be Exec Sponsor for your specific accounts or Key Executives on your Account
• Example: Build a leads list using SalesNavigator in LinkedIn, then IM them in LN, ask for warm intro’s, Social Selling

Services & Offerings

• SOW Renewals – during renewal time of existing SOWs, it’s a good time to pause and have a conversation with customers on what else we could be doing for them, what additional services we can offer, what value add, solutions we can provide, etc. That way you’re having a strategic discussion, expanding/deepening the relationship, becoming more of the value add partner vs. transitionally renewing paperwork
• Conduct a Briefing or Capabilities Presentation -> Design/Architecture Session/Assessment/Workshop/Service Design -> POC -> Propose a Solution -> Close/Win -> Deliver
• Get into (or offer) Architecture Design, Discovery Sessions, Workshops, Assessment type Engagements (QA assessment, Mobile strategy discussion and roadmap planning, Innovation Workshops etc.), Business Consulting, etc.
• Map out Services we provide to customer now vs. services/capabilities available. Look at the gaps, figure out how to fill the gaps e.g. get into DevOps, QA, BI. If we only do Digital, let’s do Core IT
• Apply Solutions Selling not just “staff aug”. Think about their real pain points. Help them solve those
• At the onset of the engagement create a Roadmap for Future Development, Phases, Vision, etc.
• Offer Center Of Excellence (CoE) Setup/Model for QA, Dev, BI, RPA, etc. with end-to-end Services from Business Consulting as part of CoE, Digital, to Development Factory, to QA/Automation, to DevOps, to Support. e.g. digital factory – from design, dev, support to feeding the loop back with analytics
• Ask WHY? Don’t just “Take an Order” E.g. WHY do you need few more QAs on the project. Keep asking WHY this leads to getting to the real pain points and challenges
• Plus 1+ ask what else does customer need. e.g. if they need 1 more expert, see if there is need for other expertise. Example: they’re looking for Developer resources, why not ask about Digital, QA, DevOps, Support Needs and add additional team members.
• Position Consulting Services Offerings
• Show your Point of View e.g. bring PPT for a discussion
• Show blueprint, model, or just Power Point of “What good end state looks like”. Show “What good [end state, architecture, solution] looks like”.

Cross-Team Collaboration, “ONE TEAM”

• Build Strong Team “One TEAM” e.g. DM, SM, AM, Architects, PMs
• Meet with your team on recurring basis
• Engage “Big COMPANY TEAM” e.g. Sales, Presales, DSP, ISP, Competency Centers, etc. to help you prepare for meetings, calls, bring them to meetings
• Bring your Company’s Execs to key meetings

Marketing, Events

• Identify Joint Marketing Plan (e.g. joint whitepapers, case studies, speaking events, events, PR, etc.)
• Invite to events, HIMSS, your Company’s internal events, round-tables, etc.
• Execute a Lead Gen campaign using marketing messaging, customized messaging,  get leads list, emails, call them, follow-up
• Apply Guerilla marketing i.e. “JUST DO IT”, just call people, just setup meetings by sending calendar invites, etc.
• Participate in Client Conferences, Events

Partnerships

• Do we have joint Partner opportunities identified, do we know Partner Account Teams? E.g. Adobe, Sitecore, SAP, MSFT, etc.
• Meet Partner Account team to go after joint deals, compare notes, account plans, collaborate

Thought Leadership, Innovation

• Share your Company’s white papers, share public case studies, webcasts. Email, remind about yourself
• Identify investment budget required e.g. Trainings, POC, White Papers, Events, Innovation Programs
• Show Innovative approaches that can help their business, e.g. engage Competency Centers to educate, engage “Innovation as a Service Team”
• Hackathons, Innovation Programs

You want to achieve Just in Time (JIT) to align all the parts (swim lanes) below to be done, executed, ready at the same time. The closer you can get them to align, the better.

• SOW, Change Requests (CR), Legal – paperwork done, executed to allow you to start and recognize revenue on services
• Bench, Recruiting, Interviews, Team – have the team ready, interviewed, accepted
• Onboarding, Virtual Machines, VPN, Infrastructure, Office Space – have onboarding procedures done e.g. drug testing, background, have infra, laptops virtual machines, login accounts, IDs, office space, etc. in place
• Knowledge Transfer – team needs to start learning about the project, consuming materials from the customer about the project, or learning domain, etc. ahead of the project start

This is a sticky note that has been my reference for a long time. Red X’s are for reference purposes, your goal is to line up the X’s as close to each other as possible i.e. Just in Time (borrowed from a manufacturing concept) so everything and everyone is ready to start. That way you don’t have the team lined up sitting idle, waiting for SOWs to be executed or waiting for an official customer onboarding to be done before they can start the engagement. If you’re missing any components, try to move some things up, for example, start the knowledge transfer or customer onboarding, getting VPNs, IDs, environments,  hardware, etc. setup while your team is waiting for an official start date and an executed SOW.