About Forrester
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Duncan primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals. He is a leading expert on software pricing and licensing and helps clients understand and address the effect of technology changes on software contracts. By researching enterprises' experience in dealing with large software vendors, including their negotiation successes and the problems they encountered later in the relationship, Duncan helps clients create and execute sound negotiation strategies and get advantageous software license and maintenance agreements.
He is also a leading expert on ePurchasing technologies, such as eProcurement, eSourcing, and electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP), and he advises clients on their application strategy in this area, how to make good choices between alternative solution providers, and how to get the best results from implementation.
Prior to joining Forrester, Duncan worked for QAD, an international provider of enterprise solutions for manufacturing companies in various product management and product marketing roles. Most recently, he had global responsibility for radical changes to QAD's pricing and licensing strategy.
Duncan qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG and then joined Courtaulds, a diverse multinational manufacturing company. He held various line finance and IT roles before becoming project manager in a corporate team, managing systems-enabled business improvement projects around the world.
Duncan has a first-class degree in mathematics from Hertford College at the University of Oxford and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Many clients ask me for help in dealing with very large software companies who, in their opinion, always seem to have the upper hand in negotiations. "How can I make myself less dependent on X?" they...
I help hundreds of technology buyers each year to understand the impact of technology changes on their software contracts, but I also get questions from software providers about how best to price...
On Monday, SAP communicated that it will increase the price of standard support on new contracts by 5% from July 15, 2013, from 18% to 19%. SAP’s announcement claims that the increase is...
Avoid the 2013 holiday rush – start your year-end software negotiations now! Have you just about recovered from several adversarial, transactional software procurement negotiations last month?...
Last week I was a guest at IBM’s Smarter Commerce event, mainly to see what it has been doing with Emptoris, which it acquired seven months ago. You may recall that I blogged certain misgivings...
SAP is advertising for a new Director Of Pricing & Licensing. The job description states “The Strategic Pricing Director is a key member of SAP’s Revenue Strategy and Pricing Group....
Microsoft is gradually improving the way it allows for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and other scenarios in which many employees use Microsoft on multiple devices. We’re getting growing numbers...
Oracle reported its results for the three months to February 29th yesterday, and it beat analysts’ expectations. Software license sales were up 15% from last quarter, and up 7% on last...
Microsoft recently announced that it will change to its European currency pricing policy from July 2012, and the effect could be a 20% price increase for UK customers. It didn’t publicize the...
I’m always searching for new negotiation best practices and tips when I’m speaking with Forrester clients, but it's not often I find one when I’m relaxing in bed with an old...
The proposed acquisitions of SuccessFactors by SAP, and of Emptoris by IBM got me thinking about the impact on buyers of market consolidation, in respect of the difference between dealing with...
When moving to a fully virtualized environment, what are the challenges when working with vendors that are licensing in virtualized environments, and what are the best practices for overcoming these...
Just over a week after SAP published its intention to buy Success Factors, IBM announced yesterday that it will acquire Emptoris, one of the leading ePurchasing suite vendors. My colleague Andrew...
How is software license optimization (SLO) going to really work with the advent of smartphones and tablets and the consumerization of IT, and will each business unit have its own budget and then be...
What discount should we get for a Microsoft enterprise agreement for desktops?
One of our middleware suppliers has offered us a choice of licensing its product by "messages" or "business transactions" as opposed to the more traditional "per CPU" method. What are the pros and...
Having attended Oracle’s customer event a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it to Emptoris’s Empower event this year, but I'm glad I was able to...
I handle many inquiry calls from clients asking for help negotiating with large suppliers, and often they claim the supplier is a strategic partner. I’ve noticed that many clients use that...
I’ve just returned home from San Francisco where I was attending the Oracle Openworld 2011 (#OOW11) event. Overall it's a good event, although, as usual, a bit frustrating. Instead of...
What are some best practices for vendor management negotiation?
In this economic environment, do you have suggestions on how to motivate suppliers to agree to a relationship that will shrink and not grow over time? Can you suggest best practices in a situation...
When a company shows up to conduct an audit, what software tools does it use, and does it have a list of auditing tools it recommends or accepts?
As soon as you think you understand software companies’ policies on virtualization, a new problem appears that makes you tear your hair out and scratch your now-bald head. This month’s...
Is it an industry standard for a strategic IT software supplier to change the definitions regarding the severity for software defects from "urgent, high, medium, low" to "high, medium, low" in the...
Yesterday, SAP announced its intention to acquire business-to-business (B2B) integration provider Crossgate http://www.sap.com/index.epx#/news-reader/?articleID=17515. This was no great surprise, as...