European Banking Organisation

Introduction 

The client was a large European bank with hundreds of branches and annual revenue of approximately €2.5 billion.  They engaged bedigital to support them through the renewal process, as they transitioned from a legacy VMware enterprise license agreement (ELA) to VMware by Broadcom subscription bundles.  This project involved working against an aggressive timeline and engaging with multiple stakeholders from across different areas of the business.

Their challenge 

The client was operating within a tight timeline, with the renewal due 3 months from the beginning of the engagement, and a restrictive budget for the agreement set by the bank’s senior leadership team.  In conjunction with that, the client wanted to renew into a diverse bundle portfolio which included VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware vSphere Standard.

Their objectives 

The client’s objectives were:

• To gain a full understanding of its VMware estate and establish exactly what products were in use and where.
• To renew the agreement with a significant discount from list price.
• If possible, to renew the agreement within its mandated budget.

bedigital solution 

The bedigital solution comprised three key stages:

• Create a full ELP for the VMware products in scope of the renewal, using contracts, license entitlement and deployment data.
• Look for risks that would require remediation and any opportunities for optimisation.
• Prepare a negotiation strategy to enable the client to get the best possible deal, based on the available data and the client’s future strategy.

How bedigital delivered 

We completed the enterprise license position (ELP) review quickly, identifying both a compliance risk and significant optimisation opportunities:

• A small number of license keys could not be reconciled with the client’s entitlement records, likely due to historical upgrades or license We advised the client’s virtualisation team to trace these back to their original entitlements, reducing potential audit risk ahead of renewal.
• Working closely with technical stakeholders, we also reviewed the client’s future infrastructure requirements. By consolidating workloads and identifying hosts better suited to alternative licensing models, we reduced the VMware estate by approximately 4,500 cores before renewal.
• With the revised core requirements agreed, Broadcom’s initial proposal offered only a 20% discount from list price. We supported the client through the commercial negotiation, advising on competitive partner bids, contract term options, product mix and other commercial levers to strengthen their negotiating position.
• Following multiple rounds of negotiations, the client secured a discount of more than 40% from list price, delivering multi-million euro savings over three years compared with Broadcom’s original offer only two months before. The final deal also included free professional services to help the client transition and a free TAM resource.

Challenges 

There were numerous challenges to overcome to deliver a successful project:

• A very tight schedule meant that we had to work quickly and efficiently in order to understand the estate and secure the best possible agreement for our client.
• A strict renewal budget, set by the senior management team (SMT) – eventually, this was amended and the SMT allocated additional funds to the renewal once they recognised the strategic value the agreement represented to the bank.

Outcomes 

• Savings of €2.9 million over three years from reducing the core count by 4500, when baselining using the final offer unit cost for VMware Cloud Foundation.
• Overall savings of €2.1 million over three years directly influenced by our negotiation strategy, when comparing the best and final offer to the first offer for the agreed core count.
• Client achieved an overall 42% discount from list price on a 3-year renewal.

Testimonials

“We are very happy with the outcome of this engagement.  bedigital’s excellent estate analysis and negotiation strategy set us up for a successful renewal.”

The client’s senior procurement manager in strategic technology sourcing.

Conclusion 

The project was delivered in time for the renewal against a very tight deadline, and we were able to support the client in securing a deal that would work for them strategically, with a final discount significantly higher than any we have seen in 2026.

Product List

The following list shows the in-scope products for this engagement:

• VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus
• VMware vSphere with Operations Management Enterprise Plus
• VMware vSphere Standard
• VMware vSphere Standard for Remote Office and Branch Office
• VMware vCenter Standard
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Enterprise
• VMware NSX Distributed Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention
• VMware Aria Operations for Networks Advanced