Understand. Optimise. Negotiate. Verify.
Four stages, in order, each producing the evidence the next one depends on. The engagement does not begin with a savings target — it begins with your actual position, and occasionally concludes that the position is already correct.
Each stage produces what the next one depends on.
Understand
Reconstruct the position from evidence, before recommending anything.
- What exists — contracts, commercial structure, terms actually agreed
- What is consumed — billing decomposed and reconciled against usage
- What is committed — instruments held, their coverage and their expiry
- What is known, and what is missing — gaps named rather than estimated
Baseline locked and countersigned, before any negotiation begins
Optimise
Establish what the position should be, given what the business actually requires.
- What the business requires — roadmap and plans, not last quarter's trend
- What changes under forecast growth, and what the downside case costs
- Where headroom exists, and what sequence protects it
- Whether the current structure is already correct
A target position your finance function adopts
Negotiate
Turn the evidence and the optimised position into a defensible commercial strategy.
- What to seek, term by term, with a value attached to each
- What to concede, in what order, and what must not move
- Where the walk-away line genuinely sits, costed honestly
- When to open, given renewal timing and leverage decay
An executed agreement matching the target position
Verify
Compare what was agreed against what was actually billed, until they reconcile.
- What was offered, and what was finally negotiated
- What the executed terms say, line by line
- What the invoices show once the terms take effect
- What was realised — the only figure that reached the P&L
A reconciliation signed by your own controller or CFO
A number that computes is not the same as a conclusion that holds.
Arithmetic will execute on almost any input. The harder question is whether the evidence underneath actually supports the conclusion — and where it does not, the correct output is to say so rather than publish a figure that happens to be calculable.
Five evidence states, kept distinct
- 01
Observed
Measured from your own billing and usage data.
- 02
Forecast
Modelled forward, with assumptions stated. Never presented as measurement.
- 03
Recommended
The position the evidence supports. Not yet agreed with anyone.
- 04
Negotiated
What was actually executed. Frequently narrower than what was recommended.
- 05
Realised
What the invoices show. The only figure that ever reached the P&L.
What a conclusion is allowed to rest on
Evidence is not one thing. These tiers are treated differently, and a conclusion is never presented as stronger than the tier beneath it. Published list pricing describes structure — it is not a market rate, and we do not call it one.
- 01Public reference
Published list pricing and vendor documentation. Establishes structure, never a market rate.
- 02Indicative benchmark
Third-party published ranges, carried with their sample size and their limitations.
- 03Customer evidence
Your contracts, billing, usage and commitments. The primary basis for every conclusion.
- 04Verified outcome
Negotiated and realised results reconciled against issued invoices.
Reclaim does not hold a proprietary database of private enterprise transactions, and does not present published pricing as though it were one. Verified outcome evidence accumulates from engagements over time; until it exists, conclusions rest on your own evidence and are labelled accordingly.
Every one of these is revenue we chose not to earn.
An advisor who profits from the size of your commitment cannot give you an independent view of how large it should be. These are structural limits, not preferences.
No vendor commission
We are not paid by AWS, Salesforce, HubSpot or any reseller. Nobody on the other side of your negotiation has a commercial relationship with us.
No reseller margin
We do not resell licences, capacity or support. An advisor whose revenue scales with your spend cannot tell you your spend is too high.
No referral fees
We take no fee for introducing you to an implementation partner, a reseller, or any other vendor. Recommendations carry no hidden compensation.
Never in the room
An account team that knows an advisor is present turns a pricing conversation into one about the advisor. We prepare the position; you keep the relationship.
Each of these makes our numbers smaller.
They are enforced in the analysis itself rather than applied afterwards, because a figure that does not survive scrutiny is worse than no figure at all.
A population figure is never quoted as money
How many seats do not need what they hold, and how much spend is actually recoverable, are different measurements. Multiplying the first by your bill produces a larger number and a false one. The two are always reported separately.
Every figure carries the date it becomes available
Enterprise agreements rarely permit arbitrary mid-term reduction. A figure without the date it is recoverable is a figure the counterparty dismisses in one sentence.
Unknown is reported as unknown
Missing evidence is not silently converted to zero, and it is not filled with an assumption that makes the arithmetic complete. It is surfaced as a gap, and any conclusion depending on it is held rather than published.
Modelled is labelled modelled
Projections are marked as projections; realised figures come from invoices. We do not present the first as the second on any page of any deliverable.
Book a commercial audit
Stage 00 is a 30-minute qualifying call at no cost. If the timing or the estate does not justify an engagement, we say so on that call.