IT Savings Opportunities often Overlooked
by Kelly Higgins, VP Solutions Architecture – Tier4 Advisors
IT departments are always under pressure to reduce expenses, cut budgets, and improve operational efficiency. Two areas of expense that usually fall into the IT budget are cellular/mobility costs and IT equipment maintenance cost. Both costs can represent significant IT expenditures but, there are ways for the IT department to help reduce these costs and to help your company achieve its financial goals.
As IT equipment ages, the availability of parts from the original manufacturer (OEM) become harder to obtain. Equipment vendors eventually place equipment on end of life (EOL) or even end of support. The use of third-party maintenance (TPM) providers can fill this gap as well as reduce cost of existing maintenance agreements. Most maintenance providers in this space support a wide arrange of equipment manufacturers and models including Cisco, Juniper, HP, and Dell.
A TPM providers assessment is essentially risk-free. The provider will use an organization’s IT equipment or asset inventory along with other equipment configuration data as needed and present a report on their estimated cost to provide support. TPM providers can usually reduce a company’s annual IT maintenance cost by 30% or more while matching the same levels of support SLA’s currently in use.
An organization’s cellular and mobility expense is another area for expense focus. Smartphone sprawl is a common factor in most organizations. Especially for companies with multiple offices either domestically or internationally. Companies often try to manage hundreds of cell phones along with employee corporate plans. This can result in overpaying for employee plans, inability to keep track of phones, and the lack of visibility of phone and data usage.
A cellular expense management provider can help a company with all of these problems. Cellular expense management focuses just on a company’s cellular spend and device management. These providers perform an assessment of a company’s current mobility spend and return a report showing the potential cost savings and ways to improve operational efficiency with cellular plan management. Some providers will integrate mobile device management tools into their solution. These providers can usually generate 35% or more in annual savings plus identify other cost savings measures. The assessments usually come with a “walk away” guarantee if the prospective company does not agree to the savings estimates.
Whether you’re looking for expense reductions with IT equipment maintenance or with your cellular/mobility costs or both, Tier4 can help you find the right provider to meet your needs.
Tier4 Blog Edition 27: February 14, 2018