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Proactive IT Cost Containment: Cisco SMARTnet Agreements

/ Hybrid Hardware Support Value, IT Ops: Cisco Smart Licensing & Entitlement Risk, IT Ops: Cisco SMARTnet Alternatives / By / Cisco Entitlements, Cisco SMARTnet Pricing, IT Cost Containment, IT Cost Reduction Strategies, Network infrastructure, Network Maintenance, Network Support Services
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I’ve specifically written this blog for those responsible for your company’s SMARTnet contract. If you’re now driven to exploring proactive cost containment within your Cisco SMARTnet agreement, this educational blog, with guided information links, will certainly be eye-opening, as well as rewarding. Yet, likely most rewarding for those facing urgent IT cost containment mandates from upper management.

UNFAMILIAR with Modern SMARTnet Cost Containment Strategies:

  1. Tracking and proactively managing Critical Milestone dates are an important first step. If milestone dates are a foreign concept, start by reading this short (5-minute read) blog: “Hardware Lifecycle Milestone Dates: What are They? How can They Help?”
  2. “Hybrid” Hardware Support modeling is a popular practice that takes advantage of milestone dates. Reviewing the highlights and a few definitions (5-minute overview) here will be helpful: “Hybrid Hardware Maintenance with Independent Support.”
  3. If you’re now asking, “How much can I save? Can you help me project the cost-savings potential?” That’s perfect! This short blog (5-minute read) provides concise answers: “Hybrid Support: Reliably Forecasting the Savings Potential.”
  4. Want a convenient information packet to share with your colleagues/supervisor? Click Here!

FAMILIAR with Hybrid Hardware Maintenance & Independent Hardware Support:

  1. Are You Enabling SMARTnet Waste or Cisco Entitlement Risk? It’s Likely One or the Other. Cisco Smart Licensing (and the 2017 EULA change) created a serious entitlement compliance risk for all companies using a Hybrid Hardware Support model. Here’s a simple intro (5-minute read) to the subject: “What Cisco & Traditional TPMs Don’t Want You to Know.”
  2. XSi is the first independent maintenance provider to offer a solution which reduces SMARTnet spend, yet assures 100% entitlement compliance. Want a convenient information packet, including an historically revealing white paper? Click Here to:
    1. Read our Bi-Annual Newsletter, and
    2. Learn about XSi’s Cisco Lifecycle & Asset Assurance! Then,
    3. Access a custom information packet, relective of your choices.

About The Author

Todd founded XS International in 1990, helping to build an independent IT support organization led by pioneering executives with proven tenures at Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks. He holds a board of director positions with the world’s two most prominent associations for independent IT support providers – Service Industry Association (SIA) and ASCDI (hardware resellers). He was a founding member of the Digital Right to Repair Coalition (now known as Repair.org, and continues to serve on their Board of Directors. Very much a serial entrepreneur, Todd earned his Bachelor’s in Finance from Ohio State University and later completed a three-year Entrepreneurial Masters Program, given by the Entrepreneurs’ Organization & MIT Enterprise Forum. He now resides in the greater Dallas area with his family.

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