At a Glance

• Annual savings: $80,000+ per year
• Locations consolidated: 18
• Accounts unified: Multiple separate accounts to 1 enterprise agreement
• Service scope: Phone and internet (ISP) across all sites
• Added benefit: Single enterprise-level account, unified billing and support

Overview

A growing multi-unit brand with 18 locations was quietly overpaying for phone and internet service at every site. Groovy Strategic Consulting renegotiated their contracts with their internet service provider, consolidated more than a dozen separate accounts into a single enterprise-level agreement, and reduced the company's telecom spend by over $80,000 per year. The savings were recurring, the billing became far simpler, and the brand gained enterprise-tier support it never had access to before.

The Challenge

Multi-location brands rarely overpay on purpose. They overpay because each location was signed up separately, often years apart, by different managers, on whatever plan was available that month. Over time this creates a hidden and expensive problem.

• Each location had its own phone and internet contract, negotiated in isolation and priced as a small single-site account.
• Contracts had been signed at different times, with different terms, rates, and renewal dates, making the total picture nearly impossible to see. Most sites were locked into 2-3 year terms.
• No one was managing the vendor relationship at the brand level, so the ISP had no incentive to offer volume pricing.
• The company was paying 18 retail rates instead of one negotiated enterprise rate, and absorbing the cost of redundant services and auto-renewing increases.

For this retail brand with 18 locations, the situation was typical of fast-growing operators:

The result was tens of thousands of dollars in avoidable annual expense, spread thin enough across locations that it never triggered alarm on any single invoice.

Our Approach

Groovy Strategic Consulting treats vendor contracts as a portfolio to be managed, not a stack of bills to be paid. We ran a structured negotiation process built specifically for multi-unit operators.

Audit and baseline. We collected every phone and internet contract across all 18 locations and built a single view of what the brand was actually paying, what services it was receiving, and when each agreement renewed. This exposed duplicate services, overage patterns, and rate inconsistencies between sites.

Leverage analysis. We quantified the brand's true combined value to the provider. Eighteen locations negotiated as one account is a materially different customer than eighteen separate small accounts, and that combined volume became the basis for enterprise pricing.

Negotiation and consolidation. We renegotiated directly with the ISP, consolidating every location onto a single enterprise-level agreement with unified rates, aligned renewal dates, and volume-based pricing, while protecting service quality at every site.

Transition and verification. We managed the switch to the consolidated account and verified the new rates against the first billing cycles, confirming the savings were real and recurring rather than promotional.

The Results

The renegotiation reduced the brand's phone and internet costs by over $80,000 per year, a recurring saving that compounds every year the agreement stays in place. Beyond the dollar figure, the brand ended up structurally better positioned:

• Over $80,000 per year in recurring savings across the 18 locations.
• A single enterprise-level account replacing a dozen-plus fragmented ones.
• Contract terms shortened from 2-3 years per site to a single 1-year term under the enterprise agreement.
• Unified billing and aligned renewal dates, so the company can see and manage telecom spend in one place.
• Access to enterprise-tier support and pricing the brand could not reach as separate small accounts.
• A repeatable framework the brand can apply to its other vendors and to every new location it opens.

"Not only did we get to save 10s of thousands of dollars a year through this project to unify our ISP accounts, but it made the process of handling the vendor a lot smoother and less of a headache for IT and Accounting, now that the accounts are all listed under a single enterprise account"

Why This Matters for Your Brand

If you operate more than a handful of locations, you are almost certainly overpaying somewhere in your technology and telecom stack, for the same reason this brand was: contracts signed in isolation, no one negotiating at the brand level, and vendors with no reason to offer you volume pricing you never asked for. The money is real, it recurs every month, and it rarely shows up as a problem on any single invoice.

Groovy Strategic Consulting negotiates software and technology vendor contracts on behalf of multi-unit brands, phone and internet, point-of-sale, SaaS subscriptions, payment processing, and more. We find the savings, handle the negotiation, and consolidate the accounts, so you keep the service and lose the waste.

This engagement was delivered through our vendor contract negotiation service, part of our Technology Advisory practice for multi-unit brands.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is vendor contract negotiation?

Vendor contract negotiation is the process of auditing, renegotiating, and consolidating a company's agreements with its software and technology providers to reduce cost and improve terms. For multi-location brands, it often means replacing many separate site-level contracts with one enterprise agreement.

How much can a multi-location brand save?

Savings vary by size and current contracts, but they are often substantial. In one engagement, Groovy Strategic Consulting cut a brand's phone and internet costs by over $80,000 per year across 18 locations by consolidating to a single enterprise account.

What types of vendors do you negotiate?

We negotiate software and technology vendor contracts including internet and phone (ISP), point-of-sale, SaaS subscriptions, payment processing, and other recurring technology services used across multiple locations.

Do we have to switch providers to save money?

Not necessarily. Much of the savings comes from consolidating existing accounts and negotiating volume-based enterprise pricing with the current provider, so brands often keep the same service while lowering the cost.

How does the process work?

We audit every contract to build one clear baseline, quantify your combined volume as leverage, renegotiate and consolidate with the vendor, then manage the transition and verify the new rates against your billing.