Use Competitive Intelligence Skills to Eliminate Over-Billing by your Vendor

The same CI skills used to pinpoint a competitor threat can be applied to uncover over billing by your vendor.

Meticulous investigation and forensic analysis, both required in CI, can help you red flag over billing by a vendor.

Start with a copy of their terms of agreement and an invoice:

TERMS OF AGREEMENT

Examples:

No mention of make goods for errors

No details as to who would be managing your business (e.g. partner, director, account manager)

Invoice

Examples:

• Terms are hard to understand (small font, financial jargon, lengthy)
• Copies of bids by subcontractors are not attached
• Spending is based on estimate vs job
• Fees are rounded up

Push Comes to Shove

In the end you may decide to do what Boston Bank did, when they were faced with significant overrides by a vendor

To reign in over spending they took back anything that the vendor did not specialize in and control of anything which the vendor marked up.