As a banking institution, The Pentas Group knows you’re looking to save money and diversify into new products and services to attract customers and stay competitive in the evolving marketplace. We’re aware that having flexible and multiple options in providers and pricing is critical in negotiating agreements and saving on your expenses. However, we also recognize that there’s a lot of work that goes into navigating that process. We saw this industry-specific need and created a one-stop-shop solution for managing your cost structure through familiarizing ourselves with your institution upfront, making data-driven recommendations, and continually advocating for you.
We’re dedicated to staying up to date with the industry, including pricing, contract terms, and new products. Structuring agreements and negotiating better terms and conditions is time-consuming and requires having the right business intelligence and data to make informed decisions. For example, it can get complicated attempting to implement a better contract condition in a changing marketplace (such as a better price mix or new services). We attend breakout sessions with attorneys to keep up with legal jargon and regulatory compliance. We are constantly in communication with providers to keep us informed of what they’re doing, now and in the future, which allows us to better articulate changes and progress while negotiating better pricing on your behalf.
At the Pentas Group, we prioritize taking the time initially to get to know your institution, building a relationship, and remaining dedicated to keeping communication open. A part of our unique process includes several meetings with your provider(s) and you and your institution to ensure everyone is on the same page. We communicate weekly to further discuss where we’re at with the provider(s) so that there’s no radio silence, guaranteeing you always know what’s going on. Our goal is to give you peace of mind, knowing you have somebody in the background that is always there to work on your behalf.
We’ve perfected our 5-step process to 90-120 days to give you the most significant impact on your bottom line. These critical steps allow The Pentas Team to help guide you in a more informed manner.
ASSESS: Our process starts with a mutual nondisclosure agreement which allows the Pentas Team to evaluate your current contract(s) and invoices with your current provider(s) to qualify what products and services are currently being used in your existing data processing environment.
SURVEY: Next, we take this data and organize it into a pricing model. We review the information and strategy, find the products you use or don’t use, and identify gaps to build on your IT strategy and increase your competitiveness in the market. In order to understand your needs and current strategy to make our recommendations, we take the time to sit down with your executive and middle management in each department to go through the various functions within your institution. We combine all of this critical information to create an easily digestible survey. When evaluating each department, we focus on four essential components to give us a complete picture of your institution:
- Digital services
- Growth strategy
- Efficiency improvements
- IT infrastructure
RECOMMEND: Following the survey, we review everything (including pricing and potential savings) to quantify the survey and share observations and recommendations. We want to ensure that you are fully informed on your current provider(s) and product(s) or service(s) so that you can decide on a course of action and whether or not you’d like to engage our services further.
Up until this point, there has been no cost associated with the Pentas Group’s
involvement. We do all this work upfront to get to know your institution and its
needs so that we’re confident in our ability to assist you in saving time and money.
RESTRUCTURE: Then, if you decide to further engage with The Pentas Group, we will present you with an engagement agreement and work with you and your provider(s) to finalize the document. Once signed, we will develop your tailored Client Playbook: a complete reference guide for the services you’ve contracted.
VALIDATE: This important stage highlights one of our unique services: we agree to stay on with you for several months to ensure the contract terms are being fulfilled. We perform audits to validate contract pricing, monitor what products and services are being used and implemented, and help with strategy along the way. This stage allows us additional insight, fostering educated recommendations and decisions.
After the initial engagement, many of our clients continue to partner with The Pentas Group for other value-added services.