UMS vs SHI International.

SHI is the right choice when you need purchasing power and end-to-end fulfillment. Its site describes 35 years of licensing experience, dedicated license advisors covering more than 40 publishers, and a Microsoft and Software Advisory Group with over 100 specialists who review contract terms and model Enterprise Agreement and CSP scenarios. For day-to-day licensing questions, renewal tracking across hundreds of SaaS subscriptions, and getting competitive pricing on what you were going to buy anyway, a $16B provider with premier-tier publisher status is hard to beat.

SHI's ITAM practice is also real. Its managed services pages describe Effective License Position work, audit readiness, and governance design, and cite client outcomes such as $500K in first-year savings for a workforce management provider and a $3M reduction in potential Microsoft audit exposure for a large retailer. If your gap is unreliable entitlement and inventory data across a large estate, SHI can put structure around it while handling your procurement.

The operator model wins when the job is adversarial or high-stakes: a vendor audit, a renewal where the quote must come down materially, or a SAM program that produced reports but not savings. UMS has spent 25+ years on the client's side of these moments across 200+ vendors, with outcomes like an audit claim reduced from $35M to $7.5M and an OpenText renewal cut from $2M to $115K. Audit defense from the inside is different work than audit readiness: it is positioning, counter-analysis, and negotiation against the vendor's claim.

There is also a structural incentive question that any honest comparison should name. A reseller's revenue grows with your software spend; its advisory teams may be excellent, but the firm's economics do not reward shrinking your bill. UMS is paid only a percentage of documented savings, so its economics reward exactly one thing: your spend going down. That alignment produced $800M+ in documented savings for New York City area organizations; UMS also reports a $1.3B+ company estimate across 2,400+ engagements, estimated across 25 years.

SHI's core economics are resale: it earns margin on the software, hardware, and cloud it sells, and positions its licensing advisory and renewal support as part of the customer relationship, with ITAM and SAM available as scoped or managed services. For buyers, much of the advisory value arrives bundled with procurement, which is convenient but makes the cost and the incentives of the advice harder to isolate.

UMS charges a percentage of documented savings and nothing upfront. There is no license margin, no retainer, and no fee unless verified savings exist. The model self-selects for engagements where money is recoverable: audits, renewals, true-ups, shelfware elimination, and SAM rescues. It is not a procurement channel, and UMS does not replace a reseller relationship; several UMS engagement types assume you keep buying through whoever you buy through today.

Ask SHI: how are your license advisors compensated, and does advisory sit inside or apart from the sales organization? If your recommendation reduces our spend with a publisher you resell for, how is that handled? What does SAM managed service pricing look like as a fee, separate from our purchasing volume? Will you represent us in an audit brought by a publisher you hold premier-tier status with?

Ask UMS: what percentage of documented savings do you charge and how are savings verified and by whom? What happens if the engagement finds nothing? Which team members work our matter and what is their direct experience with Microsoft, Oracle, or IBM audits? Ask both for quantified references on engagements shaped like yours.