A recent IPVM discussion focused on problems with customers being cheap and what to do about that (i.e., If The Customer Beats You Up On Price, Will You Do A Worse Job?).
An excellent response in that discussion from an end user mentions the flip side:
As a large, global company, we are often viewed by vendors as "deep pockets". Quotes include the full boat of extras on a "Rolls Royce" system and it is then incumbent upon me to start weeding through each line to strike what's not needed.
For one example, we replaced the access system at one of our sites on the east coast. The initial quote included only a single grand total, which I rejected in favor of an itemized quote which revealed how inflated the quote was. There was an extra $40,000+ for recabling the facility (2 people for three weeks) when it wasn't necessary -- it was not a new system but a replacement. When questioned, they said they included it "in case they found something wrong any of the cable"....
Maybe the customer is being unfair but maybe the customer is just being cautious because they do not know which integrators are trying to screw them.
So what do you recommend?