The situation
A two-vet small animal clinic in Bavaria had been using the same practice management software for nine years. When the software provider announced it was discontinuing support for the legacy version, the clinic owner began evaluating replacement options. A sales representative from one of the major PMS vendors had been in contact for six months and had built a compelling case for a full migration to their new platform. The proposed contract totalled €52,000 over three years.
The owner was on the verge of signing when she raised it with the Smartemis practice development team — not for a formal review, but in passing during a routine check-in call. The response was: hold on.
What the assessment found
The Smartemis team spent six weeks conducting a thorough assessment of the clinic's actual needs against the proposed solution — and against alternatives the clinic had not been shown. The findings were significant:
- The legacy system had a supported upgrade path. The vendor's end-of-support announcement applied to a specific version, not the product line. An upgrade to the current version — costing €2,800 — would extend full support for a minimum of four years.
- The proposed replacement was over-specified. The new platform included multi-site management, advanced inventory modules, and an integrated marketing suite — none of which the two-vet clinic needed or would use.
- Data migration risk was underestimated. The vendor's timeline assumed a six-week migration. Network experience suggested this routinely ran to four to five months in clinics of similar complexity, during which clinical operations would be running in parallel systems.
"I was this close to signing. I'd convinced myself it was the only option. One conversation with the Smartemis team and I realized I hadn't actually done my homework — I'd just been sold to."
The outcome
The clinic upgraded its existing system for €2,800 and extended its support runway by four years. Total saving versus the proposed contract: just over €49,000. The six-week assessment paid for itself approximately seventeen times over.
contract value
of the upgrade
runway achieved
Why this matters for the network
Software vendors are sophisticated salespeople operating in a market where buyers have limited information and high switching anxiety. A clinic owner evaluating PMS options once every decade cannot easily benchmark whether a proposal is fair, whether the alternatives are better, or whether the underlying premise — that a change is necessary at all — is correct.
The network's finance and technology capability exists precisely to provide the outside reference point that individual clinic owners cannot have. The €50,000 saving in this case was not achieved through clever negotiation — it was achieved by asking a question the owner hadn't thought to ask.