Whether you are facing an IBM audit, navigating an ELA renewal, optimizing PVU costs, or cleaning up sub-capacity compliance, our team of former IBM insiders fights for your bottom line. Independent. Fixed-fee. No IBM conflicts.
We do not resell IBM licenses. We have no IBM affiliation. Every recommendation is built to cut your IBM costs, reduce audit exposure, and give you leverage not lock-in.
Comprehensive analysis of your IBM software usage, entitlements, and compliance exposure. We review PVU, RVU, user metrics, ILMT data, and virtualization configurations to uncover shelfware and over-licensing.
We manage every phase of the IBM audit from initial notification to final settlement. We challenge deployment assumptions, validate ILMT data, and negotiate inflated claims down to real exposure.
Do not auto-renew your IBM ELA. We evaluate whether to renew, restructure, or exit with pricing benchmarks, usage analysis, and a clear commercial strategy.
IBM wants growth. We want fairness. We benchmark pricing, challenge bundling, negotiate flexibility clauses, and secure terms that protect your budget across Passport Advantage, ELAs, and cloud agreements.
Align your IBM licence usage with actual business needs. We review PVU configurations, virtualization settings, Cloud Pak deployments, and sub-capacity reporting to reduce costs without disruption.
IBM Cloud Paks and hybrid cloud licensing add new layers of complexity. We assess container licensing, IBM License Service data, and Red Hat entitlements to ensure you are not over-provisioned.
Want results like these?
Real outcomes from real IBM engagements. Every case started with a client facing IBM pressure and ended with measurable savings.
IBM identified $82M in licensing exposure across mainframe and distributed environments. Our team challenged deployment assumptions and ILMT data, reducing the final settlement to $600K.
All IBM Cases →Optimized IBM mainframe licensing through capacity model restructuring and usage analysis, delivering $71M in savings for one of Japan's largest financial institutions.
All IBM Cases →Restructured IBM ELA and identified unused product entitlements across global operations, delivering $23M in savings through internal assessment and renegotiation.
All IBM Cases →We provide independent assessment and negotiation support across every IBM licensing model: PVU, RVU, ILMT compliance, Passport Advantage, ELAs, mainframe licensing, and Cloud Pak entitlements. We benchmark your current position, identify cost reduction opportunities, and support contract negotiations. We do not resell IBM licenses. We have no IBM partnership. Our only interest is reducing your IBM costs and eliminating licensing risk.
We offer fixed-fee retainer and Pay When We Save contingency models. Under contingency, you pay only when we deliver verified savings that exceed our fee. For most IBM licensing engagements, the ROI on our advisory fee is 8 to 12 times. We provide a detailed business case with projected savings before you commit.
Timeline depends on engagement scope. A licensing assessment typically runs 4 to 8 weeks. An audit defence engagement can run 8 to 16 weeks depending on audit scope. An ELA renewal negotiation typically runs 6 to 12 weeks from engagement start to contract execution. We can accelerate timelines where IBM is applying renewal deadline pressure.
To begin, we typically need your current IBM contracts, Passport Advantage agreements, ELA terms, ILMT data, system inventory, virtualization configuration details, and invoice history. All information is shared under mutual NDA before the engagement begins.
Yes. We frequently engage mid-audit when organizations recognize they need independent benchmarking and commercial expertise. We assess the audit scope and exposure claims, identify data validation opportunities, and develop a settlement strategy to reduce final exposure. Early engagement achieves more, but mid-audit intervention consistently delivers measurable improvement.
We advise clients on the strategic question of disclosure on a case-by-case basis. In many negotiations, there is no obligation to disclose the use of an independent advisor, and non-disclosure is common practice. We guide you through the commercial and relational implications of both approaches based on your specific situation.
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Guides, checklists, benchmarks, and intelligence for every IBM commercial scenario.
Free tools to estimate savings across licensing assessments, audit defence, ELA renewals, and optimization.
Step-by-step guidance for responding to an IBM audit notification and challenging exposure claims.
We have published pharmaceutical-specific guides covering IBM Power Systems licensing in pharmaceutical environments, IBM software licensing for life sciences, IBM Cloud licensing for pharmaceutical data compliance, and IBM licensing audit defence for pharmaceutical companies.
Tell us your IBM situation, choose a convenient meeting time, and we will respond within one business day.
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