Summary
Summary
A European industrial manufacturer with global operations had its Microsoft Enterprise Agreement coming up for renewal. The budget for Microsoft licensing was set at approximately €1.74 million, and any increase needed a board-level conversation. SAMexpert supported the client through a licensing review, a structured request for quotes across five Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, the negotiation with Microsoft, and the analysis the board used to decide.
Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement proposal came in at approximately €1.74 million a year. The most competitive CSP offer came in at approximately €1.56 million for Year 1. The board chose CSP, saving approximately €181,000 in the first year, with a three-year commitment of approximately €4.86 million.
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A renewal with a budget ceiling
The client had approximately 2,260 licensed users. E5 workloads were the anchor of the estate. Power Apps Premium was tied to a third-party managed services relationship, a Copilot strategy was emerging, and a multi-entity holding structure needed assessing.
With the licensing budget fixed at approximately €1.74 million, the question was whether the Enterprise Agreement was still the right answer.
What the review found
Power Apps Premium was the first thing that needed attention. There was a price difference of roughly 40% between the user count bands, and the client's estate sat right at the threshold. Depending on how a CSP partner priced the estate, a quote could be very competitive or completely wrong. SAMexpert verified the pricing, and the numbers were right.
SAMexpert ran a structured request for quotes through five CSP partners. Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement proposal came in at approximately €1.74 million a year. The most competitive CSP alternative came in at approximately €1.56 million for Year 1, a gap of €181,000 in the first year.
The five-year option and Microsoft's revenue floor
Microsoft also offered a five-year Enterprise Agreement. As SAMexpert pushed into that option, Microsoft confirmed that its internal revenue floor for the year sat at €1.8 million. The E5 and Power Apps discounts that had been negotiated did not reduce Year 1 costs. They changed what Microsoft needed to fill the gap. To reach the floor, the client would have had to commit to 1,500 Copilot licences in Year 1.
From Year 2, the commitment could drop to a minimum of 300 licences, and the discount benefits would flow through. Year 1 was a different calculation. Making the case for the five-year option needed a full five-year total cost of ownership model, and SAMexpert built one.
Three scenarios for the board
The model compared a three-year Enterprise Agreement, a five-year Enterprise Agreement and CSP. Each scenario was tested against the cost drivers: an announced E5 price increase, forward-modelled CSP price increases, the Power Apps price band, and the Year 1 Copilot commitment under the five-year Enterprise Agreement.
SAMexpert also ran a retrospective, comparing what the Enterprise Agreement had saved the client over the past three years with what the CSP market would have cost. The board needed that context alongside the projections.
One more risk needed quantifying. CSP price protection for E5 is only fixed for a three-year term if the tenant holds more than 100 licences. The client had a third-party multi-tenant setup, and that condition might not apply across all of its accounts. The risk went into the board materials, presented clearly, as an argument for Enterprise Agreement price stability.
The board decision
The board received the presentation and confirmed the CSP route five days later.
The Enterprise Agreement process still did its job, as competitive leverage and as the comparison that proved the CSP case.
The outcome
Metric | Result |
|---|---|
Enterprise Agreement baseline | €1,740,000 a year |
CSP Year 1 (selected partner) | About €1,559,000 |
Year 1 saving | About €181,000 |
Three-year CSP commitment | About €4,855,000 |
Copilot (CSP) | 300 licences at €17.20 per user per month, a 30% promotional rate |
Board decision | CSP selected, confirmed five days after the board presentation |
What the client has now
The board saw what the Enterprise Agreement had delivered historically, what the five-year commitment meant in Year 1, what the CSP risks looked like, and how all three options compared over five years.
The client chose CSP. It has €181,000 back in Year 1 and a three-year commitment at a known price.
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