IT divisions the world over are getting the same message from top management: find ways to support and maintain the corporate network for less, or we’ll have to cut your budget .
And it’s no wonder, because support and maintenance costs typically claim the largest part of
IT’s already burdened purse. Making things more difficult is the fact that infrastructure estates are rapidly increasing in size and complexity, yet there’s a growing need to reduce the costs of running them.
IT is then compelled to do what most other departments would do to save money: put pressure on its suppliers to drop their prices. It’s the most obvious way to create savings, because those costs are visible. But while that’s important, it’s usually not enough.
A more effective approach would include less apparent strategies like optimising existing technologies , refreshing devices later in their life cycles, and weighing up support levels against the criticality of the device in maintaining the integrity of the network. The problem is that many organisations are still unclear as to the scope and detail of their estates... and without such information, they’re going in blindfolded.

‘ Truly cost-effective IT support and maintenance simply can’t be done without an accurate inventory,’ says Dimension Data’s Client Director for
Sales in Asia Pacific, Patrick Morris.
‘ You need complete visibility of your estate because you can’t manage effectively what you can’t see. While it may seem like an obvious point to make, it’s surprising how many organisations still fall at this first hurdle on their way to reducing costs. Without an inventory, they have no choice but to attack the costs that are visible: new technology bought from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and support contracts with service providers.
‘ We have to understand the organisation’s dilemma, though,’ says Morris, ‘particularly large international businesses. Lacking an accurate inventory is not due to bad management or neglect. It’s often simply a by-product of rapid growth and expansion, and of doing business across multiple industries, regions, and countries. It’s a common challenge.’
‘ Take one of our large clients in the Asia
Pacific region for example,’ says Morris.
‘ This organisation is a well-known global brand with a business profile that spans a range of industries, from manufacturing to financial services. Until recently, both the management and back-end business support strategy of this conglomerate had been fractured and disparate around the world. These strategies were geared towards the specific geography in which a particular department operated, as well as to that department’s specific needs.
‘ Businesses within the group were run mostly independently, both geographically and operationally. It was complicated and expensive to manage at a global level all the many in-country business support systems and processes for each of the business units due to a lack of central visibility and governance.
This was also true for ICT and related service contracts. Therefore, the top management team, based in Japan, wanted to consolidate and streamline its business processes and procedures with scale, cost, and efficiency as its objectives.
‘ Globally, the organisation lacked an accurate inventory of all its IT assets,’ continues Morris,
‘ which caused difficulty in creating a global maintenance service that would be the right fit. We helped the business by conducting an assessment to discover all assets, determine their lifecycle statuses, and gauge any potential endof-life risks or unnecessary duplications.
A different assessment then helped to optimise the management and cost of maintenance and support.’
‘An accurate inventory enables the business to identify end-of-life status and thus preempt any equipment-related problems,’ explains Morris.
‘ This helps the organisation’s support environment by drastically reducing the number of incidents that would need to be resolved daily. Also, the risk of expensive network downtime is reduced, improving the organisation’s operations as a whole.
‘ Having one support and maintenance partner globally means there are fewer contracts to manage at a regional and country level. Resources can be optimised by moving them from commoditised routine services to areas that have a higher value for the business. Overall, the organisation is well on its way to reaching its target of saving up to 15% on maintenance and support costs… after capturing about
75% of the full estate. For this business, it’s still all about gaining a baseline of accurate inventory information and visibility of any end-of-life or endof-support equipment. Really basic information like this is already greatly valuable to them.’

Morris points out that if OEMS are given such visibility of client estates, they may face a conflict of interest when it comes to helping clients remove costs from the business.
‘ The OEM’s goal is to sell as much new technology as possible and increase its share of the client’s estate by pushing out competing technologies. Helping clients get the most out of technologies already in the estate may not be in the
OEM’s best interest, particularly if the technologies are not its own. Yet, this is a more effective strategy to reduce costs than purchasing new technology early.
‘ And the larger its share of the estate, the more influence the OEM will exert over the organisation’s purchasing decisions, because it wields the power of price. That’s why client estates that incorporate a larger number of vendors usually also show a greater appetite for alternative – and more effective – ways of lowering support and maintenance costs. With the client I’ve described, there’s a distinct move to consolidate the number of vendors in the estate to a short, standard list across regions.
But there’s no intention to move to a single-vendor environment. This is also the case with most of our other clients, as the general trend is towards multivendor environments.
‘ The biggest challenge to cost-reduction for this client is governance: enforcing its chosen IT standards across the business. Many of the organisation’s countries had loyal, legacy relationships with local partners. They sometimes shared critical competitive information with providers during requests-forproposal (RFP) processes in order to ensure that the local partner is more price competitive than the recommended global provider. In those cases, the organisation’s head office lacked the governance to dictate its standards, as the countries were still free to do business with whomever provided the most cost-effective rates.
‘But again, visibility is critical here,’
Morris emphasises.
‘ Organisations need to understand that there’s more to pricing than what’s included in RFP responses, particularly considering the resources needed to support the network effectively.
Global governance and standardisation require accurate inventories of the estate in each individual country.
But there may be a natural resistance from county management to provide detailed information, because it would imply relinquishing a level of control and damaging long-standing local relationships.’
‘There are many such challenges for global businesses today,’ concludes Morris.
‘ It’s a long process of maturity that needs to develop throughout the organisation and it won’t happen overnight. But each long journey starts with a first step and, in the case of maximising cost-savings, there’s no other way but to start with gaining greater and more detailed visibility of your complete estate. It enables you to make decisions with your eyes wide open.’
CS / DDMS-1458 / 01/14 © Copyright Dimension Data 2014

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