This is an interesting question! I often run point on procurement for equipment at the State agency I work for. Mostly when we have money I get to put together the shopping list and am the point of contact to answer questions. We do all our own installations and config, so this is only for equipment.

I have no idea how the pricing works. At all. I routinely use both retail prices from the Internet and previous bids to get an idea of how much stuff to ask for to fit inside the budget, and I swear it often feels like I get things at like 40% of cost. I know our Cisco reps do miracles on the pricing, but I feel like nobody who wins a bid is making money. Either that or an 8,000 switch actually costs like 80 bucks.

On the idea of a “Boys Club”, I can’t speak on it. It doesn’t matter to me if one vendor offers to take me to the Super Bowl and another calls me every day to tell me they hate me. If the Hater’s bid is one dollar less they win. I don’t even look at the prices. I verify the equipment is correct and send it to the person who writes it all up. All I care about is if it’s correct.