Driving significant cost savings is only one of the benefits of adopting a Hybrid Hardware Support model, or engaging XSi. This blog will identify what I believe to be the top five benefits (value propositions) for those of you with IT operations and/or IT budget responsibilities within our country’s federal agencies.
In addition to budget savings, XSi services also:
- Extends the useful life of hardware assets for as long as clients so choose.
Sometimes you find yourelf dependent on applications which have dependencies to specific hardware. Holding onto those assets for as long as you need should be your choice. We have commercial and federal clients with hardware assets that are over 15 years old. When the OEM preferred to push an upgrade, many of these clients found that their reliance upon the application couldn’t be undone without creating chaos for internal IT users/clients. Like your automobile, you need to have the flexibility to rely on your IT assets for as long as you choose. As long as it is useful to you, in your circumstance, why should you change your definition of “useful life” for the manufacturer? If you have older hardware assets that have become a serious P.I.T.A., this blog is your ticket to simply and quickly solving the problem.
- Permit federal agencies to have support long beyond OEM announced EoS (no forced refresh).
In many respects, this is just a different way of considering the point made in item #1. EoS dates are indeed milestone dates worth tracking. But, instead of being a date that feels like the date you must report to prison to serve a sentence, you CAN be seeing it as the date you become free. At EoS (and often before), you can rely on independent support and save a great deal of OpEx budget dollars. As an independent hardware support provider, we can provide the technical expertise and parts sparing, then maintain your hardware long beyond the EoS date – a date that used to live in infamy.
- Frees up budget dollars for cloud transitions or other initiatives deemed important to the client.
In the federal sector, budget dollars are closely watched and budget increases can take an Act of Congress – pun intended. What if you were able to do more, accomplish more, before those budget increases are approved? Do you have a cloud transition planned that’s lacking the funds necessary to get started? I’ll bet you’d be delighted to learn that as much as 10-14% of your total annual hardware OpEx budgets can be reduced by remodeling your support for post-warranty assets.
- Improves IT Asset Management practices, which in turn positively impact: renewals, CapEx purchases and compliance prior to OEM audits.
In many instances, IT Asset Management teams are primarily focused on software and aren’t giving the bare minimum attention to hardware. Building the infrastructure for hardware ITAM and ongoing management so that your agency can capitalize on savings need not be difficult or labor intensive. And, with Cisco assets, entitlement compliance has become a real issue. But, we can lead you through a support remodeling program that solves compliance and positively impacts your overall efficiency.
- Often helps consolidate and simplify vendor count
Whereas you may have a few vendors for in-warranty assets, you may have SEVERAL more for post-warranty assets – even those which are 10+ years old. With the support remodeling we can help solve, vendor counts are often reduced and vendor relations are simplified. Additionally, think about how easy it can be to have all those various support agreements be made co-terminous.
XS International is ISO9001:2015 Certified, meets SAE AS5553 Standards, currently supports 42 federal agencies and all of the Top 10 Federal Systems Integrators.
New Service Announcement from XSi
In September 2019, we formally announced a new service: Cisco Lifecycle & Asset Assurance. If you’re looking for a better IT maintenance solution (consider entitlement compliance) and missed the announcement at the XSi LinkedIn Profile, we welcome you to read our Newsletter, XSi Team News & Gartner Recognition.
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