Many IT teams are under pressure to find ways to cut costs while meeting the demands of the business. For IT departments, one of the easiest areas (but not necessarily the best) to cut costs is the maintenance contracts. Depending on your company size and industry, studies indicate that up to 70% of your IT budget is earmarked for by maintenance and support, making it a large target for budget cuts.

What most companies in this predicament don’t know is that there is another option. Instead of cutting out maintenance and support contracts and leaving your business exposed, you may want to look at third party options. Third party maintenance companies offer cost-effective maintenance and support agreements that save as much as 40% in ongoing maintenance costs while keeping service levels agreements (SLAs) the same – if not improving them.

Cost Savings

There are a variety of reasons as to why ongoing maintenance can be so expensive. For one, when a company makes an IT purchase from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) the system typically comes standard with three years of maintenance and support.

What happens at the end of three years? You have one of two options to choose from:

1. You can re-up your contract with the OEM.
2. You can upgrade your system.
3. Third party maintenance

With the first two options the ball is in the court of the OEM, they can either charge you an astronomical amount of money to maintain your system, or present you with a new system that is just as expensive. This puts you in a situation that might not be financially feasible, leaving you to take the risk of just letting the maintenance contract expire, and crossing your fingers. What a lot of companies are not aware of is that they actually have another option: third party maintenance. Third party maintenance companies charge customers what they deserve to be charged to support and maintain their systems. Through the use of expert level engineers, a third party maintenance company provides companies with maintenance and support at service levels equal to the OEM – if not better – while saving the customers from the manufacturers’ costly and sales-oriented fee.

Another factor in maintenance accounting for a large portion of IT spend is multiple contracts from multiple OEMs. Due to the fact that an EMC engineers are not certified to maintain your HP equipment and vice-versa, you find yourself paying and managing two or more maintenance contracts in almost every scenario; not only can this be costly, but it can also be time-consuming. By partnering with a third party maintenance company, you are able to reduce the number of contracts, resulting in a reduction of costs and time management.

Flexibility

Paying for only what you need is what many third party maintenance companies offer with customizable maintenance contracts. With most OEMs, you have to pick a base contract that might not fit your needs, leaving you with costly fees to add on SLAs or upgrade certain items to get what you need.

Third party maintenance companies often don’t have a “premium”, “critical” and “mission critical” or a “bronze”, “silver” and “gold” package you are forced to pick from. With truly customizable contracts, you could simply select the things you want and build the contract to fit your needs.

Low risk/High efficiency

Taking your contract to a third party vendor can feel a bit risky and stressful, but you can receive equal, if not better service from a third party vendor. At many third party maintenance companies, engineers are required to take the same tests and achieve the same certifications that the OEM engineers are required to have. Those engineers have expert level certifications and likewise support Fortune 500 companies and small business with the same service.

David Urban, Manager of Disaster Recovery Support