Optimize, negotiate and maintain best-in-class Microsoft agreements that cost less and give your business more.
Successful optimization begin with quality data. We offer a deep analysis of your software usage data and license entitlements, identifying undetected overspend, commercial risk, and opportunities for optimization.
Pairing deep vendor-specific licensing knowledge with your organization’s data, we assess optimization opportunities through persona alignment, business needs mapping, and deployment planning analysis to build an optimized Bill of Materials.
We collaborate with you to design a Negotiation Playbook of commercial and negotiation best-practices. Leveraging global insights from 500+ agreements across all geographies, verticals, and organizational sizes, we secure you more favourable contract terms.
Formulate a data-driven overview of your Microsoft pricing, license entitlements, and actual usage of on-premise installations, Server, and Cloud subscriptions.
Map operational needs against current usage across the business to craft an ideal deployment plan that aligns with user persona profiles.
Identify a comprehensive set of optimization strategies to reduce your Microsoft licensing costs and reclaim overspend.
Create a unique Negotiation Playbook aligned to your organizational needs, backed by global market insights, and executed with hands-on support from our Microsoft experts.
Ensure optimal continuity of your Microsoft environment with annual usage analysis, contract optimization, license, portal and chargeback management, access to our License Helpdesk, and more.
We begin by analyzing your current Microsoft Contract, assessing the pricing structure, any amendments in place, and reviewing the Customer Price Sheet to determine what’s included. This analysis provides insight into the current commercial structure and serves as the foundation for optimizing your estate.
Based on our assessment of the current Microsoft contract, we generate the current Bill of Material, which includes the list of products, licenses, and amendments that could potentially provide license entitlements too.
We then delve deeper into the actual installations and usage of the software. This is where the ‘data’ comes into play. We analyze three different areas:
- On-premises installations
- Microsoft Cloud Subscriptions
- Azure Consumption
The on-premises data comes from your existing tools such as vCenter, Active Directory, SNOW, Flexera, SAM Pro, Lansweeper, or other tooling. To analyze Microsoft Cloud Subscriptions and Azure, we use our tooling to provide us with the necessary data to analyze the current usage of the Cloud platforms.
Through hands-on workshops, we define personas within your organization, mappingoperational roles and technology requirements for each persona. These workshops alsoserve as knowledge-sharing sessions to outline more cost-effective licensing potentials.
Based on your company’s current and future operational needs, and informed by realworld persona behaviour, we outline an optimal deployment scenario that will inform theoptimized Bill of Material.
After analyzing all the data and determining current and future demand, we will assessall possible cost reduction and optimization strategies. This information will bepresented in a management summary.
Next, we combine the operational needs assessment with possible optimizationstrategies to perform a cost modelling exercise. This results in the new Bill of Materialsthat covers the current costs and licenses, the minimum license scenario, the requiredlicense scenario, and a licensing scenario to account for potential future demand.
The 2Data team will work with you to create a unique Negotiation Playbook that reflects the optimal position you’d like to achieve with Microsoft. It incorporates our global market insights and tested strategies for securing best-in-class agreements.
2Data’s Microsoft experts offer step-by-step support throughout the negotiation process, either in an advisory capacity or through hands-on participation in your negotiations with Microsoft.
Have annual usage analyses conducted to ensure usage and license entitlements are continually rationalized.
Get perpetual, responsive access to our team of Microsoft experts for licensing queries.
Run an annual contract optimization to keep your licensing cost, compliance and operational effectiveness in check.
Accurately track Microsoft licenses, keep your Microsoft admin portal clean and compliant, and allocate costs back to departments based on actual usage.
At 2Data, our independent, data-led approach to Microsoft licensing drives measurable savings for clients around the world. From reducing overspend to optimizing contract terms, we ensure every decision is backed by clarity and driven by results.
We saved €1.2 million with 2Data in just a short 6-month project. The team are exceptional at what they do.
- Group Procurement Manager, Financial Sector
As an independent advisory, we safeguard your best interests by remaining totally vendor and tool agnostic. Our only aim is optimizing your agreements.
Our priority is realizing added value in your software estate. Before engaging, we confirm a viable optimization opportunity - and if you don’t save we don’t get paid.
Our service delivery is designed to account for budget pressures and tight renewal timelines, with agile delivery of the needle-moving actions that optimize your software agreements.
Successful optimization begin with quality data. We offer a deep analysis of your software usage data and license entitlements, identifying undetected overspend, commercial risk, and opportunities for optimization.
Pairing deep vendor-specific licensing knowledge with your organization’s data, we assess optimization opportunities through persona alignment, business needs mapping, and deployment planning analysis to build an optimized Bill of Materials.
We collaborate with you to design a Negotiation Playbook of commercial and negotiation best-practices. Leveraging global insights from 500+ agreements across all geographies, verticals, and organizational sizes, we secure you more favourable contract terms.
Successful optimization begin with quality data. We offer a deep analysis of your software usage data and license entitlements, identifying undetected overspend, commercial risk, and opportunities for optimization.
Pairing deep vendor-specific licensing knowledge with your organization’s data, we assess optimization opportunities through persona alignment, business needs mapping, and deployment planning analysis to build an optimized Bill of Materials.
We collaborate with you to design a Negotiation Playbook of commercial and negotiation best-practices. Leveraging global insights from 500+ agreements across all geographies, verticals, and organizational sizes, we secure you more favourable contract terms.
Successful optimization begin with quality data. We offer a deep analysis of your software usage data and license entitlements, identifying undetected overspend, commercial risk, and opportunities for optimization.
Pairing deep vendor-specific licensing knowledge with your organization’s data, we assess optimization opportunities through persona alignment, business needs mapping, and deployment planning analysis to build an optimized Bill of Materials.
We collaborate with you to design a Negotiation Playbook of commercial and negotiation best-practices. Leveraging global insights from 500+ agreements across all geographies, verticals, and organizational sizes, we secure you more favourable contract terms.
We saved €1.2 million with 2Data in just a short 6-month project. The team are exceptional at what they do.
- Group Procurement Manager, Financial Sector
Successful optimization begin with quality data. We offer a deep analysis of your software usage data and license entitlements, identifying undetected overspend, commercial risk, and opportunities for optimization.
Pairing deep vendor-specific licensing knowledge with your organization’s data, we assess optimization opportunities through persona alignment, business needs mapping, and deployment planning analysis to build an optimized Bill of Materials.
We collaborate with you to design a Negotiation Playbook of commercial and negotiation best-practices. Leveraging global insights from 500+ agreements across all geographies, verticals, and organizational sizes, we secure you more favourable contract terms.
Our Microsoft optimization methodology provides strategic management of cloud usage and licenses to maximize usage efficiency and minimize unnecessary costs. The objective of this assessment is to identify the right
number and type of licenses for your current and future deployment, while reducing shelfware and
remaining compliant with relevant Product Terms.
We begin by analyzing your Microsoft contract: assessing pricing, identifying amendments, and reviewing the Customer Price Sheet. This reveals your current commercial structure and forms the foundation for optimizing your Microsoft estate.
Based on our assessment of your current contract, we generate a current Bill of Material, which includes the list of products, licenses, and amendments that could potentially provide license entitlements.
.png)
We then analyze software installations and usage across: 1) On-premises installations, 2) Microsoft Cloud Subscriptions, and 3) Azure Consumption. On-prem data comes from tools like vCenter, Active Directory, Flexera, SAM Pro, etc. For Microsoft Cloud and Azure we use M365 and Azure exports or our own tooling to capture current platform usage.
At the end of the Cost Optimization Asessment, you will receive a comprehensive report. This will give insight on the actual usage and cost optimization opportunities in your software environment.
The Cost Optimization report will include information on:
• Unassigned Licenses
• Unused Licenses
• M365 App Usage.
• Mailbox and OneDrive storage Usage (gb)
• License and Users Eligible to Downgrade Their License
• Benchmarking
• Commercial and Contract Optimization Strategies
• Azure Optimization Strategies like:
• Orphaned Resources
• VM Optimization
• Bring Your Own License Strategies
• Reserved Instances
• Savings Plans
• Region Optimization
Welcome to our FAQ section! Here you’ll find answers to some of the most common questions we receive. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to reach out to us directly, and we’ll be happy to assist you.
We run successful projects across multiple organizational sizes, industries, and geographies. On average, companies reduce their contract costs by 32% with
2Data regardless of company size.
LSP’s can be helpful for compliance maintenance, but because they resell vendor licenses there’s an obvious conflict of interest. An independent advisor safeguards your best interests by remaining totally vendor and tool agnostic.
Read our success stories An LSP is there to support you with the operational aspects of your contract. Our focus at 2Data is on helping you reduce costs through market insights, benchmark data, and proven tactics to support you in your contract negotiations separate to your LSP.
Read our success stories This depends on your organizational needs. Most once-off optimizations take between 3-6 months, while our Optimization as a Service offering gives you comprehensive coverage over a longer period.
Read our success stories We use an equitable pricing model that accounts for number of devices/users and geographic considerations. We offer the choice between a flat fee, or a success fee tied to the outcomes of the project.
On average, companies make back 15 times the cost of our services through both realized cost savings and cost avoidance.
2Data is an independent software licensing advisory specializing in Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce and IBM optimization. We help companies reduce contract costs, manage risk, and simplify their software licensing.
