Don’t Get Locked into Microsoft Support Negotiations—Again – 3rd Party: A Microsoft Support Show (ep8).

Fantastic, Tipper. It’s good to be here with you, and happy to talk about it. It is a convoluted process. It’s a long process. It can be painful at times, so let’s go through it.

Microsoft is the giant in the room—you know it. Fortune 500 companies, large enterprises… when negotiating with Microsoft, they still hold a lot of the cards, and the Unified Support piece is often the elephant in the room. It’s a tough one to talk about for a couple of reasons.

The support isn’t great. A lot of feedback we get from incoming clients is about problematic service, changing price structures year over year—it’s a tough negotiation point. There are several pitfalls throughout the process, and overall, it’s a long, convoluted, not-so-fun experience.

Exactly. There’s a lot of fatigue involved. You fight the battle one year, maybe come to a conclusion, then pretty soon you’re at it again. And people’s technology footprints aren’t shrinking—they’re growing, which drives Unified Support costs up.

Each year, clients who come to US Cloud have the same issues: getting the best price, the best offering, then having to renegotiate. But with our model—how we organize, price, and lock in rates for multiple years—there’s a lot less stress on that ongoing conversation.

Well, if Microsoft is the giant, then Unified Support is the elephant in the room—nobody wants to address it. IT teams hate the support experience, and procurement teams hate the painful, recurring negotiation process. That’s why Unified often gets bundled separately or left off entirely: Microsoft finds it hard to tackle head-on.

Exactly. Bundling is a big part of it. There’s an old adage: “Where there’s mystery, there’s margin.” If you don’t truly understand pricing per product, per service, or per technology delivery, there are too many moving pieces in those agreements.

It’s all about options. You need to evaluate what third-party pieces look like—what US Cloud offers, how we’re organized differently, what our deliverables are versus Microsoft Unified, and how it’s priced. The more ammunition you have, the better you’ll negotiate—whether you stay with Microsoft or move to something entirely different.

Start those discussions early. Include not only your sourcing team but your IT stakeholders. Talk to every individual supporting the technologies that matter to you, and dive into deep preparation.

Start by looking at your actual usage over the past year. Understand your ticket history—what technologies you most often work with Microsoft to support.

Several things. Look to independent organizations like Gartner, InfoTech—industry giants tracking technology vendors. You’ll find a lot of analysis around third-party support. In preparing for negotiations, it’s important to understand your own technology needs.

What support have you consumed over the last year? What types of tickets are you placing daily? There’s a usage report in your Microsoft portal—get a baseline of your needs, because your technology initiatives and adoption from Microsoft may be growing. Ask: Is my support need changing?

Watch their priorities—they’ll tell you a lot about their agenda. Are they pushing cloud spend? Copilot adoption? New technologies that might not make sense for your roadmap? Those are bargaining chips. Break them out as separate proposals rather than having everything bundled together.

Microsoft is focused on increasing Azure spend, Copilot adoption, new technology uptake. If those align with your roadmap, absolutely use them as bargaining chips—treat each as a separate proposal. The more bundles you unravel, the less mystery, and you can see if it’s really benefiting you or if the cost is right.

Organizations like Gartner, InfoTech—their whole business is helping you navigate what’s in front of you. Directions on Microsoft is another fantastic resource for Microsoft-specific questions. How do I negotiate? What trainings do you offer to help me and my team? Use those resources to get the most out of these conversations and the relationship going forward.

Get a quote—period. Eighty percent of IT procurement officers who come to US Cloud get a better deal. Period.

You might just go get a quote from us—80 percent get a better deal. Use our Azure Optimization tool to cut your Azure spend, refocus in other areas, and leverage our partner network for negotiation and execution support.

It’s simple: come get the information, go through the process, get a quote. Over 80 percent of procurement leaders who come to us save money—whether they stay with us or even if they stay with Microsoft. And our Azure Optimization tool can save 30–50 percent on Azure spend.

When you come to US Cloud, pull up the hood: see how your Azure spend is organized. We’ll find savings, identify waste—it’s time well spent.

And lastly, there’s our partner network—use them for additional resources and negotiation tactics. There are so many resources out there, and US Cloud can point you in the right direction to make this year’s experience less painful.

Recently we worked with a sourcing director in the U.K. who was at her wit’s end—conversation after conversation with Microsoft, hours on the phone. She needed long-term relief.

We proposed a multi-year solution with US Cloud: very little fluctuation in rates, depending on needs and organization. What made sense for her was comfort for the next three years, rather than going back to Microsoft after her team expanded their footprint and saw wildly fluctuating pricing.

At least fifty percent—perhaps fifty-two percent?

Dollars? In her case, it was millions of dollars—this was a multinational company.

This was one year. Over a three-year term, that’s tens of millions of dollars saved on support. And it’s not just a pricing play—US Cloud is a value play. We organize our service and support differently, above what clients tell us they experience with Microsoft day in and day out.

It’s a value and quality play, locked in for three years with the comfort of not having to fight that fight again in eight months. We want to make it easy for you.

We also worked with a large global bank—conversations for months, massive trust in us, huge savings. But in the end, Microsoft came back with a fantastic offer, and the bank stayed with Microsoft. That’s OK—sometimes Microsoft will win that negotiation. But often, clients will move to us for the experience we provide.

If you go back to the mothership? It’s so hard to leave Microsoft—canceling things like Premier Support for Partners is nearly impossible. They’ll come back with $5-a-month offers, then $2-a-month. They keep at you until it makes sense to stay.

But what happens is you’re exposed to our team, have conversations, and next time we’ll be positioned much better as your future partner.