Renewal-window briefing · 30 minutes · no demo
Before You Sign Your Next MFT Renewal
Four questions worth asking your incumbent before you re-sign, and a scored worksheet to take into that conversation. The questions are vendor-agnostic, including toward us.
- Your MFT renewal lands in the next two quarters
- You've re-signed twice without a real evaluation
- You want a straight answer on migration cost before you commit again
No demo. The worksheet is built for your incumbent's answers, not ours.
Renewal window briefing · worksheet
MFT Renewal Evaluation
Four questions to take to your incumbent before you re-sign
- 01Credential architecture
- 02Evidence pack
- 03Migration tooling
- 04Three-year architecture
01 · Credential architecture
The roadmap to eliminate persistent credentials, with a date.
02 · Evidence pack
What they produce for your compliance frame, and how fast.
03 · Migration tooling
What leaving actually costs, and who you'd call.
04 · Three-year architecture
Where file exchange sits relative to identity and audit.
Switching costs at renewal are roughly half what they are mid-contract. Most teams miss that window because the renewal sits on the procurement calendar, not the strategy calendar. By the time architecture comes up, the decision has already been made administratively.
What you leave with
The artifact is yours to use regardless of whether you ever work with us, which is why the blank worksheet is a download rather than a form.
- A four-question evaluation worksheet with a scoring column, vendor-agnostic, and written for your incumbent conversation rather than ours.
- The "acceptable answer" standard for each question, so you can tell a real answer from a confident one in the room.
- A structured read on which of the three outcomes your renewal points to, and an appetite check on what would need to be true for an evaluation to be worth running.
The four renewal questions
Score your incumbent's expected answer against each one: strong, acceptable, or weak. The pattern across the four is what decides your renewal, not any single answer.
01
Credential architecture
What's your roadmap to eliminate persistent credentials from your platform, and when does it ship?
A good answer looks like: A dated roadmap with a credible architectural description, not "we rotate keys frequently".
02
Evidence pack
For our specific compliance frame, what's your evidence-pack output, how long does it take to produce, and what questions does it not yet answer?
A good answer looks like: A frame-mapped artifact with a quantified production time and an honest list of gaps.
03
Migration tooling
If we wanted to leave your platform in 18 months, what's your migration tooling, what's the actual cost, and who at your firm would I call?
A good answer looks like: A named person, a documented process, an honest cost estimate. Discomfort answering is itself the finding: that's lock-in.
04
Three-year architecture
What's your authenticated-architecture path for the next three years, and where does file exchange sit relative to identity, audit, and compliance evolution?
A good answer looks like: A thesis connecting file exchange to your broader security architecture, not just a product roadmap.
The three outcomes
The pattern across your incumbent's four answers maps to one of three outcomes. We'll tell you which one we think you're in, and the worksheet lets you check that against your own scoring.
You're fine
A clean renewal: 3–4 strong
Your incumbent answers confidently and specifically. You re-sign with evidence instead of habit, and you know exactly why. The evaluation has done its job.
Worth pressing
A negotiation: mixed, no weaks
A few gaps you take back as specific, dated commitments, or as pricing concessions tied to the weaker answers, before you put your name on the renewal.
There's work
An evaluation: one or more weak
Enough is unanswered that the renewal window becomes a 90-day due-diligence period where alternatives get a real look, while switching costs are at their lowest.
Before you book
- Is this a sales call in disguise?
- No. We don't show you MnemoShare unless your own answers surface something that maps to what we do, and even then only if you ask. If the session ends with us telling you your current stack is fine, that's a normal outcome and we'll say so plainly.
- What if we're happy with our incumbent?
- Then you leave with a documented, dated artifact saying so, which is useful evidence in its own right for a board, an auditor, or a diligence questionnaire.
- Can I just have the worksheet without the call?
- Yes. The download is right there, no email required. It's designed to be self-serve. The session mostly saves you time and adds an outside read on your answers.
- Isn't a vendor-run renewal review inherently biased?
- It would be if the questions were rigged toward us, which is why they aren't. They're architectural questions any serious MFT vendor should be able to answer, and we'd score badly on at least one of them ourselves. If your incumbent answers all four strongly, the honest recommendation is that you re-sign.
- Our renewal is already close. Is it too late?
- Not for the negotiation outcome. Even inside the last few weeks, four specific, dated commitments written into a renewal are worth having, and asking for them costs nothing.
Switching costs are lowest at renewal. It's the one month a year the question is cheap to ask.
Four questions, scored, and a worksheet built for the conversation with your incumbent, not with us.
No demo. The worksheet is built for your incumbent's answers, not ours.