Research suggests that the majority of managers in charge of procuring IT believe they never overpay when making a purchase. Probrand.co.uk published a report which surveyed 200 IT buyers and 74 suppliers, and revealed that as many as one in three think they are getting good deals when it comes to buying IT.
In stark contrast to these findings, separate and independent research revealed that IT buyers actually pay an average mark-up of 18% on IT hardware, and up to 1992% in some cases. This is significantly higher than the 3% advisory mark-up recommended by the Society of IT Managers (Soctim).
Matt Royle, marketing director at Proband, said: “It’s clear to see that, despite the overwhelming majority of IT buyers believing they never overpay for equipment, many work really hard to get what they think are good deals from the suppliers. This is a worry; IT buyers aren’t getting the transparency they demand and suggest that the majority of suppliers are overcharging and adding unnecessarily high mark-ups on IT products and services.
“It also indicates that the complexity of the IT supply chain is preventing some special discounts offered by distributors and vendors from getting through to IT buyers.
“As such, we would encourage IT buyers to challenge their suppliers to be open and transparent with their margins, bearing in mind the 3% benchmark. I’d also urge buyers to look at new ways of buying IT that promote transparency and competition across suppliers, and reduce time wasted manually sourcing and comparing prices and stock levels.”
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