Is anything really non-negotiable? In part four of our “Negotiating with Goliaths” series – where each week, he offers negotiating tips to SMEs looking to attract larger companies as clients – he challenges the notion that not everything presented as “non-negotiable” is in fact, non-negotiable.

Don’t blindly believe – “It’s non-negotiable”

Everything is up for grabs if you ask for it, never blindly believe the words “we don’t negotiate that” or “that is a hard line for us” when it comes to large corporates or else you’ll end up agreeing to something silly just because you failed to try. Whilst it is possible that some terms are difficult to change and some organisations might be totally unwilling to accept a higher degree of risk under any circumstances, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to make changes to difficult or quite onerous terms.

That being said, whilst something might be negotiable to an extent there can be instances where you simply have little choice but to accept something. One example of this would be compliance with the Modern Slavery Act in the UK or anti-bribery legislation, and whilst compliance with certain laws is indeed mandatory many of the requirements only kick in if you are an organisation of a certain size.

Always be mindful that if you sign up to do something that you don’t actually need to do, not only are you legally responsible to your customer for doing that thing you might also be raising your own compliance bar generally for the entirety of your business. It might be tempting to agree to every virtuous sounding principle or policy in order to make your customer happy but you should avoid placing undue contractual burdens on your business as that will usually make it a less attractive prospect when it comes to a sale of your business.

No one likes acquiring bad deals and the cost of one bad deal can potentially far outweigh the value of a number of good deals.

Don’t blindly believe – “We don’t agree to supplier terms”

Sometimes you might be told that you have to use your customer’s own contract because it is their “policy” to always contract on their own terms. This will often result in you being provided with a lengthy generic contract that has very little to do with your product or services and doesn’t contain the specific terms your own agreement has which deal with specific problems or risks that are particular to that product or service. What this means in most cases is that both parties have no clear way to resolve specific issues when it comes to dealing with business as usual and that increases the odds of a dispute.

You might not think it, but it is often perfectly acceptable to tell a customer that you cannot afford to pay for their contract to be reviewed because it’s too long and complicated given the nature of your services. This might not always work, but it can sometimes save you an expensive legal bill and convince the customer to take another look at your terms.

Don’t blindly believe – your “lower” bargaining power

One of the most surprising and fantastic things about the tech sector is the fact that a start-up can come up with something that the world’s largest businesses need desperately, yesterday, and often don’t have much choice in how they get it or who they can get it from. That could be a special software program or a particularly useful database, or something else which few people can offer. Counter to most other types of services which are provided by overly saturated markets; an SME with a specific product or service might have better leverage than a large service provider does in many cases. For example, there are many hosting services providers out there and so those terms are often negotiated heavily even by medium-sized businesses.

DISCLAIMER: The information and opinions expressed in this article does not address individual requirements and is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute any form of legal advice and should not be relied on or treated as a substitute for specific advice relevant to your particular circumstances.