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Glossary

Definition

Switching cost

Switching cost is the total expense — financial, technical, and operational — of moving from one vendor or platform to another.

Switching cost is the engine of vendor lock-in. Drivers include data egress and reformatting, re-integration, staff retraining, and parallel-run periods. Projecting it at years 3, 5, and 7 turns an invisible risk into a number you can negotiate against.

Go deeper

Software total cost of ownership: the hidden costs

Related terms

Vendor interrogation kitDemowareScope packageRFP (Request for Proposal)

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