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Pricing Approach ... How frequently do you work to fixed price quotations?
Project Minimum ... What is your project minimum size?
Project Management ... Select the answer that best describes your fee structure for project management ...
Consulting ... What are your per diem rates for each of the following …
Load File Creation Fees ... What is your price per page to produce metadata, TIFF images and extracted text output into a loadable
file format?
Output to TIFF ... What are your fees per page to create TIFF output for all documents?
Output to Paper ... What are your printing fees per page?
Pricing Scenarios
... Pricing Scenario A ...
We provided our Suppliers with a specific set of requirements and asked them to provide itemized project cost
estimates – not dissimilar to what we would expect to see in a real world Request for Proposal. (Although
based on data reported earlier, doing so would clearly be the exception and not the rule, in today’s competitive
environment.)
Our scenario presents a relatively modest task in terms of types of data sought: MS Outlook e-mail, MS Word
and MS Excel documents, and Oracle database. No consulting or forensics work was required, and a competent,
uncompromised IT department can provide collection services.
In our example, our attorneys apparently didn’t do a good job narrowing the scope of discovery, since the email
request covers communications to/from 150 employees over a two year period. In this regard, the EDD
task is larger than an average engagement.
Here’s what the Suppliers were given, followed by the average values of their responses and our analysis …
Extract and provide preliminary filtering for all e-mail to/from 150 employees over the past two years. Email
is equally distributed among eight Microsoft Exchange Servers located in eight separate facilities in the
U.S. No relevant e-mail documents exist outside of the servers. None of the e-mail documents include attachments.
Document volume is estimated to total 1,000,000 e-mail messages. Average e-mail document
length is one page (not including associated metadata).
Filter by date, names (to, from, cc, bcc), subject.
Extract and associate all metadata to each document. Assume all data is live on the servers.
Deduplicate the above e-mail data set. Assume a duplication level of 25%.
Extract and provide preliminary filtering for MS Word and MS Excel documents from eight Windows NT
servers located in eight separate facilities in the U.S. Document volume is estimated to total 250,000 files.
Average e-mail document length is four pages (not including associated metadata). Filter by name and initial
create date. Extract and associate all metadata to each document. Assume that all requested data exists on
backup DLT tapes – 12 tapes for each server. Assume there is no document duplication.
Extract product data, from single Oracle DB, from 5 tables, average 30 fields per table. 15 full DB backups
exist on DLT tape. Include all data that is product-oriented.
Create and host a secure, online document database for Customer access and review. Assume 5 seats,
40 hours per seat per month for 6 months.
Produce three sets of Bates-numbered, custom header and footer, paper documents. Page volume per
set = 1,000,000 pages.
Generate TIFF image files for each document produced.
Total project completion time is 30 calendar days.
ADDITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS: Client IT group is not compromised, not a target of the litigation, competent
and cooperative. Material disruption of the client company's day-to-day business operations is not an
option.
E-mail Extraction ... Estimated cost to extract, deduplicate and filter e-mail ...
MS Word + Excel ... Estimated cost to extract and filter MS Word and MS Excel documents ...
Oracle DB ... Estimated cost to extract and filter product data from the Oracle DB ...
Online Document Database ... Estimated cost for online document database including design, loading and six months customer access ...
E-document Production ... Estimated cost to create TIFF image files for final discovery documents ...
Print Production ... Estimated cost to print, collate, bind and deliver final discovery documents ...
Additional Customer Costs ... List any additional charges the customer is likely to incur in this project for the purchase, lease, rental or
license of any specialized hardware or software from your company.
Range /Confidence Level ... Assign a percentage confidence level to your cost estimates …
Added Cost Parameters ... List any additional material assumptions you made in arriving at your cost estimate ...
We then provided our Suppliers with a second set of requirements and asked them to provide itemized project
cost estimates.
Similar to Scenario A, no consulting or forensics was requested and a competent, uncompromised IT department
can provide collection services. We’ve added a couple of new data types (e.g., data from the company
website), but the major differences are scale and timeframe.
Here’s what they were given, followed by the average values of our Supplier responses and our analysis …
Extract from Oracle Financial Software, the past 5 years of data. Data exists on a single server. Backups
made weekly and monthly. Weekly backups kept 13 weeks, monthly 13 months, yearend backup existing for
the past five years.
Extract and provide preliminary filtering for all e-mail to/from 22,000 employees over the past five years. Email
is equally distributed among eight Microsoft Exchange Servers located in five separate facilities in the
U.S. No relevant e-mail documents exist outside of the servers. None of the e-mail documents include attachments.
Document volume is estimated to total 5,000,000 e-mail messages. Average e-mail document
length is one page (not including associated metadata). Filter by date, names (to, from, cc, bcc), and subject.
Extract and associate all metadata to each document. Assume all data is live on the servers.
Extract and provide preliminary filtering for MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Text and MS Excel documents from
300 servers, all Windows NT or Win 2000, located in clusters of 60 servers in each of five separate facilities in
the U.S. Document volume is estimated to total 25 million files. Average e-mail document length is two pages
(not including associated metadata). Filter by name and initial create date. Extract and associate all metadata
to each document. Assume that all requested data exists on backup DLT tapes – 12 tapes for each server.
Assume there is no document duplication.
Extract product data from single Oracle DB, from 5 tables, average 30 fields per table. 15 full DB backups
exist on DLT tape. Include all data that is product-oriented.
Extract all data from company website. Includes 200 active pages (html/ASP), and backups for the past
three years.
Create CDs for all recovered non-filtered documents.
Produce three sets of Bates-numbered, custom header and footer, paper documents. Page volume per set
= 3,500,000 pages.
Create and host a secure, online document database for Customer access and review. Assume 5 seats, 40
hours per seat per month for 6 months.
Generate TIFF image files for each document produced.
Total project completion time is 30 calendar days.
ADDITIONAL ASSUMPTIONS: Client IT group is not compromised, not a target of the litigation, competent
and cooperative. Material disruption of the client company's day-to-day business operations is not an option.
Oracle Financial ... Estimated cost to extract and filter Oracle financial data ...
E-mail Extraction ... Estimated cost to extract, de-duplicate and filter e-mail ...
MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Text, and MS Excel Documents ... Estimated cost to extract and filter MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Text and MS Excel Documents ...
Oracle DB ... Estimated cost to extract and filter Oracle financial data ...
Internet Site Data ... Estimated cost to extract and filter Internet site data ...
Online Document Database ... Estimated cost for online document DB including design, loading, and six months customer access ...
CD Production ... Estimated cost to produce CDs housing all non-filtered extracted data from all sources ...
E-document Production ... Estimated cost to create TIFF image files for final discovery documents ...
Print Production ... Estimated cost to print, collate, bind and deliver final discovery documents ...
Additional Customer Costs ... List any additional charges the customer is likely to incur in this project for the purchase, lease, rental or license of any specialized hardware or software from your company.
Range /Confidence Level ... Assign a percentage confidence level to your cost estimates …
Added Cost Parameters ... List any additional material assumptions you made in arriving at your cost estimate ...
Extract and provide preliminary filtering for all e-mail to/from 150 employees over the past two years. Email
is equally distributed among eight Microsoft Exchange Servers located in eight separate facilities in the
U.S. No relevant e-mail documents exist outside of the servers. None of the e-mail documents include attachments.
Document volume is estimated to total 1,000,000 e-mail messages. Average e-mail document
length is one page (not including associated metadata).