SMF Advisors, the leading provider of Vendor Intelligence™ comparative pricing for the insurance and financial services market, announced today that they helped reduce the cost of a new Master Data Management (MDM) system by $730,000 for a west-coast based FinServ company.

“Financial Services company’s use data and Master Data Management to ensure that they have a single ‘master’ record,” said Jim Stone, Partner with SMF.  “This is critical to ensure that organizations truly know their customer and can see across functional business lines and enterprise systems.  SMF worked closely with their IT, Purchasing and senior management to make sure they were getting a fair market price based on comparative data from similar size companies.  This being their first full-blown MDM purchase, they simply had no handle on what a fair cost looked like.  Many companies know the vendor price is inflated, but not the degree of excess margin.”

MDM projects, and data projects in general, are infamous for going above implementation budget and timeframes.  SMF helps identify these points to build in terms to handle the potential cost increases.  Our Vendor Intelligence™ data and methodology help give organizations leverage that they never had when negotiating with vendors.

“When buying technology, most companies simply look at what percentage of savings they get from a vendor’s list price”, Mr. Stone continues.  “Most of our team have worked for vendors the majority of their careers.  Vendors have a pricing book, but in almost every negotiation we encounter, the sales team is giving flexibility which often means an increase in list price before even presenting it to the customer.  Simply put, a 20% discount may only be a 10% discount, or less.  We help even the playing field.”