“The Telecom Negotiation Conference is a must for all IT/telecom department heads. The material is on target with growing technologies.”
– Scott Breaux, Communications Director, Mid-South Technologies

“The information is valuable for all those involved in telecom, including finance.”
– Renata Milton, SLA Controller, Technology Services, Volkswagen

“Without a doubt the best conference I have ever attended. Worth every penny!”
– Telecom manager for a financial services enterprise

“Excellent course. Well worth the time, travel and cost!”
– Ken Graham, Director, Tech Ops, PDI Ninth House

“Every minute of this conference is packed with practical, immediately useful information. This is a great session for anyone who deals with telecom sourcing and/or management.”
– Ray Wise, Director, Global Procurement, Stream Global Services

"Excellent information! The savings I will negotiate will pay for this conference 10 times over!!"
– Wendy Bruneel, Office Service Manager – East Jordan Iron Works Inc.

"Overall a great conference ... one of the best I’ve attended"
– Gail Adams, Sr. Vendor Management – Bally Total Fitness

"As a first–time attendee I found this conference to be extremely worthwhile. There were many useful take–aways that I can immediately apply to my area."
– Brenda Schworm, Sr. Program Manager – General Dynamics

"This is my third time attending … the speakers are without a doubt the experts in contracting for telecom services."
– Paula Foss, Procurement Technology Relationship Manager – Eastman Chemical Co.

"This was time well spent! I gathered useful information that will be used immediately as well as on future deals."
– Dave Agey, Director, Global Telecom – Colgate–Palmolive

"I most liked the lively interaction, access to world–class experts and broad range of topics."
– Phillip Viscito, Global Telecom Manager – Dupont

"The real–life user stories were very valuable!"
– Carol Vosseller,
Contract Manager – UBS

We start the conference with the sad tale of Widget Co. As their network services contract neared expiration, they faced a host of problems and dropped the ball on just about every one of them. With your help, Hank walks through Widget Co.’s story to pinpoint the laundry list of strategic and tactical errors they (and many other enterprises who haven’t attended this conference) made. It’s your roadmap for the next two days.

Carrier myths on key issues like back-billing, regulatory fees and “similarly situated” customers litter the telecom negotiation landscape.  Laura digs deep into the most common “spins” you hear from the account teams to uncover the real facts. Turns out a lot of what you are told is based on statutes and regulations left over from the last century!  Learn what is real and what is just “spin” in this fast-moving presentation.

The key to a successful negotiation, whether you are conducting an RFP process or negotiating a contract extension, is the leverage you have and can create over the supplier(s) you are negotiating with. Carrier account teams live and breathe the negotiation process, and pull out all the stops to give themselves all the advantages. That translates into end runs to your C-levels, one-time signing bonuses that look attractive but are truly dangerous, unsubstantiated claims about prices correlating to volume, and a slew of other roadblocks or wrong turns. In this session we explore leverage factors and explain how to position yourself for a successful negotiation.

A well-planned RFP is the only way to deliver an optimum deal … and an ill-conceived RFP is guaranteed to waste time, cost way too much, and produce a bewildering array of flawed and impossible-to-compare responses. Listen as your speakers detail a timeline you should plan for, key content for your RFP, essential steps you must take to elicit apples-to-apples RFP responses, and the vendor tricks you'll need to side step in the negotiations.

Vendors love complex – and convoluted – contract language that looks like it meets your needs, but is actually written to meet their needs. Enterprises need straightforward, specific language with clearly defined solutions to issues that invariably arise during the term of a deal. Join our presenters for an enlightened explanation of what your contract language should, and should not, say in a dozen key areas.

The key parts of mobile deals – from rate plans and feature add-ons to equipment funding and ETFs – have little in common with the key parts of wireline deals. Add in a unique set of contract issues such as fixed pricing, discount tiers, rolling month-to-month contract terms, optimization requirements and links to employee wireless spend, and wireless deals have become an industry unto themselves. Mobility veterans Kevin and Ben give you the answers you need in this fast-moving session.