When your enterprise initially purchased your IT hardware the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) likely provided a warranty to help you protect your investment. But once that warranty expires how do you handle maintenance? How do you continue to maintain hardware reliability and cost competitiveness without adding risk to your operation? A third-party maintenance provider (TPM) can help extend the life of your IT hardware without practicing the dreaded ‘rip and replace’ motto that many OEMs operate under.
Most OEMs will simply “upgrade” your current hardware, cutting the useful life of your existing hardware. This can cause disruptions to your workforce and increase your costs substantially, in addition to hindering your IT team’s ease of manageability over your IT infrastructure. That is why 45.5% of the world’s data centers use independent hardware support post-warranty.
The demand for independent IT support and hardware solutions continues to grow as organizations seek flexibility and control over their IT infrastructures
Why Should Procurement Work with a TPM Instead of an OEM?
There are valuable benefits to switching your contracts or beginning new contracts with a TPM such as reducing OpEx and post-warranty spend, consolidating contracts/ vendors, extending the life of your original investment, mitigating risks and flexible offerings for an efficient transition. Through alleviating some of these common IT hardware support challenges, procurement can play an instrumental role in transforming and optimizing your enterprise’s IT environment.
We have outlined three unique TPM values:
- AGILE OFFERINGS
Technology changes often and is constantly evolving. Your workforce needs the ability to customize a solution that speaks to your unique business challenges. OEMs tend to be more restrictive in their contracts leaving you feeling “stuck” with something that no longer fulfills your needs. A lack of flexible support offerings in any IT environment can create a bottleneck and increase capital expenditures.
Independent hardware support, or TPM, especially when operating with a GPO delivers flexible contracts and service level agreements. The partnership will be able to offer service level agreements that match the criticality of each system in your environment and offer agile servicing. Additionally, flexible service-level agreements can amplify stakeholder buy-in during implementation, as they are easily adaptable to any enterprise and their distinctive needs. - GLOBAL SUPPORT
When you are having issues with your hardware, IT needs a quick, quality resolution, no matter your enterprise location. Curvature, an OMNIA Partners supplier, has global engineers offering critical hardware support 24x7 to ensure timely problem resolution and rapid mobilization.
Through over 100 service centers in North America, Asia and Europe and established dedicated support partner relationships in all other regions a fully global servicing scope is created.
- BUDGET RELIEF
TPMs focus on extending the life of your original hardware, rather than pressuring a hardware refresh, to provide competitive costs for your IT infrastructure and continuous spend management. Partnering with a TPM through a GPO allows even deeper savings through a leveraged spend model.
TPMs are a smarter purchasing decision as the solution reduces the CapEx and OpEx costs of maintaining IT Hardware through the full lifecycle. In fact, independent hardware support averages 40% savings over OEM post-warranty contracts. Through the IT Hardware Support program offered through OMNIA Partners we have been able to reduce costs for members by an average of 55%. This level of savings allows procurement to optimize spend by accomplishing more and enhancing your bottom-line. Additionally, by reducing excessive IT spend you can empower your enterprise to focus on forward-looking business, enabling IT and digital transformation projects.
Are You Purchasing For Innovation? You Should Be.
START A NEW HARDWARE SUPPORT LIFECYCLE
With your data center hardware reaching the end of its warranty, you face a pivotal purchasing decision. You can renew IT maintenance support with your OEM, rip and replace your hardware or you can capitalize on the growing market for independent support.
Curvature offers members of OMNIA Partners free inventory assessments to help you continuously improve spend management over time. Free yourself of a restrictive OEM hardware lifecycle and assess how much you could be saving through the customizable IT Hardware Support program with OMNIA Partners.
