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For finance leaders · Three minutes

Technology contract exposure check

Technology contracts renew before anyone looks, sit in three budgets, and survive an acquisition untouched. Most finance teams find the gaps when an invoice arrives.

These twelve questions show where you can see your technology commitments and where you cannot. You get the result straight away, with what to do first. No email needed.

Five areas

  • 1Renewals and notice dates
  • 2Spend baseline
  • 3Ownership
  • 4Duplication and unused licences
  • 5Negotiating position

Answer from memory. "Don't know" is a useful answer, not a wrong one.

Renewals and notice dates

1. Do you have one list of every technology agreement worth more than $10K a year?
2. Does that list show the notice date for each agreement, and not only the end date?
3. In the last 12 months, was every renewal on that list reviewed before its notice date passed?

Spend baseline

4. Can you state your total annual technology spend as one number, across finance, IT and store operations, reconciled to the ledger?
5. Can every recurring technology payment in accounts payable be matched to a signed agreement?

Ownership

6. Does each agreement have a named person who decides whether it renews?
7. Does finance see a renewal before the notice date, and not when the invoice arrives?

Duplication and unused licences

8. Do you know which systems do the same job in more than one part of the business?
9. Have licence, seat and location counts been checked against actual use in the last 12 months?
10. If you acquired a company in the last three years: has every technology contract that came with it been reviewed for overlap, assignment and termination terms?

Negotiating position

11. For your five largest technology vendors, do you know what you would ask for at the next renewal?
12. Did your last major renewal include a competing quote or a credible alternative?

0 of 12 answered

No email needed. Your answers stay in this browser unless you choose to send them to me.

What this check is, and what it is not

It is the list of things I look for in the first week of a review, turned into questions you can answer without opening a contract. It tells you where nobody has the full picture.

It is not an audit and it does not estimate savings. Putting an amount and a date on each item takes your agreements and 12 months of accounts payable data. That is the work of the Technology Spend and Contract Diagnostic.

About the author

Morris Stern runs Stern Technology Advisory, an independent practice that reviews technology spend and contracts for multi-site companies in Canada and the United States.

About Morris