Every case study on this page is real, anonymised per client instruction, and documented with precise figures. We do not publish results we cannot support. The numbers speak for themselves.
Across 500+ engagements since 2016, consistent patterns emerge in where enterprises overpay on Microsoft and where the largest savings opportunities sit.
These are not best-case outcomes. These are statistical averages across all completed engagements — including cases where political constraints, timing issues, or incomplete data limited what we could achieve.
See our advisory services for detail on each area, or explore the EA Negotiation Playbook for the complete methodology behind these results.
Average reduction versus Microsoft's initial EA renewal proposal across all engagements.
Average reduction in Azure spend through reservation optimisation, hybrid benefit, and MACC renegotiation.
Average reduction in true-up liability when we engage 90+ days before the settlement date.
Average proportion of Microsoft 365 seats recovered or right-tiered in optimisation engagements.
All engagements are fully anonymised. Industry, scale, and commercial details are accurate. Client names and identifying operational details are withheld per standard engagement confidentiality terms.
Microsoft proposed a wholesale upgrade to E5 at list price ahead of a three-year EA renewal. We benchmarked the proposal against comparable manufacturing deals, restructured the SKU architecture, and negotiated a 38% reduction against the initial quote — with full E5 functionality for the divisions that needed it.
A global financial services firm had accumulated Azure commitments through multiple acquisitions without central governance. Reserved instance coverage was below 30%. We rationalised the estate, activated Azure Hybrid Benefit across eligible workloads, and renegotiated the MACC terms — delivering a 41% reduction in annual Azure spend within eight weeks.
A regional healthcare network faced a Microsoft true-up with significant under-licensing exposure driven by untracked software deployments across 14 hospital sites. We conducted a rapid entitlement audit, identified remediation paths that did not require full list-price settlement, and reduced the exposure by 86% — avoiding $2.7M in penalties.
A national retail chain had 12,000 Microsoft 365 E3 licenses deployed to frontline workers who used only email and Teams — no desktop Office, no advanced compliance features. We redesigned the licensing architecture around F3 for frontline workers and recaptured the overpayment as credit against the next renewal period.
Microsoft's account team was pushing a 22,000-seat Copilot deployment at $30/user/month. The firm had no baseline productivity data and no E5 foundation to support it. We designed a 500-seat pilot with proper measurement methodology, deferred the enterprise commitment by 12 months, and avoided $1.2M in premature licensing spend.
Following a series of acquisitions, an energy company was operating under three separate Microsoft Enterprise Agreements with overlapping entitlements and misaligned renewal dates. We consolidated to a single global EA with unified commercial terms, eliminating duplication and achieving a 28% reduction in total Microsoft spend over the three-year term.
A technology firm migrating on-premises SQL Server and Windows Server workloads to Azure had not activated Azure Hybrid Benefit — despite holding perpetual licenses with active Software Assurance. We identified the eligible workloads, activated AHUB, and structured the reservation commitments to deliver $1.9M in annual Azure savings.
A research university was licensing SQL Server Enterprise under a per-server model for workloads that would have been significantly cheaper under per-core licensing. We audited all SQL deployments, restructured the licensing model, and negotiated the EA amendment terms — delivering $780K in savings over the three-year renewal period.
A government agency had deployed Microsoft 365 GCC at a uniform E3 tier across all 15,000 employees, despite significant variation in actual compliance and security requirements by role. We redesigned the tier architecture with E5 only where required, restructured the GCC licensing model, and achieved $2.1M in savings over the agreement term.
A global pharmaceutical company with operations across 40+ countries had allowed three regional EA structures to develop independently over eight years. Microsoft's consolidation proposal would have locked in a $22M total commitment at essentially list pricing. We restructured the global EA, benchmarked against multinational comparable deals, and negotiated $5.8M in savings over 18 weeks.
All case studies are published with client consent and under standard engagement confidentiality terms. Client names, specific operational details, and identifying information are withheld. All financial figures and outcomes are accurate as reported at engagement close. Savings figures reflect actual negotiated outcomes versus baseline; they do not represent forward projections. Results vary by engagement complexity, timing, and client cooperation level. Contact us for sector-specific references on request.
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