Obviously, vendors prefer non-monetary concessions and will be more ready to co-operate in a renegotiation. Some vendors, for instance will offer financing. EMC's Global Financial Services has operations in India, for instance, and provides financial assistance to organizations, lets clients choose from a wide range of programs designed to help preserve cash, match payments to utilization, and avoid technology obsolescence.

CIOs are also learning to drive a harder bargain with non-monetary chips on the table. One way out could be to ask for an increase in the gamut of services for the same price, and hope it will work, specially under the circumstances, where most technology providers are facing more duress than the CIO.

Where service is concerned, Paramian suggests cutting down on the number of people onsite. With fewer staffers, the manpower rate comes down too. But this needs to be done intelligently. Earlier the people on site were senior, middle and entry-level profiles. Now CIOs are choosing mostly people with middle-level profiles and as a result of this move the number of man-months they pay for has come down considerably.

When nothing else works, some CIOs will look at trimming their contracts as an opening gambit which they then follow up with a spirited push to bring prices down. However, this strategy can be risky and the choice of what to cut is important. It is vital to study usage patterns and be sure that what you're cutting isn't vital to the business. A good example is doing away with the clause for 24x7 support. But is it safe to expand that strategy and bring other outsourced pieces back in-house? "We did look into shifting technology support back in-house," Paramian says, "but we saw that it would increase headcount, which we did not want."

But other CIOs, won't even open that door. Giving up support is not a good choice, since it may put the business at risk. If a vendor is ready to renegotiate an existing contract based on future potential or other services which could be purchased by the organization, it may work. But dropping services to reduce cost should not be an option.