As organizations continue to digitize IT environments, many IT leaders find themselves tasked with managing IT support for both cloud and on-premises infrastructures. There’s no doubt that managing these environments in a cost-effective way can be a challenge—one that is only going to grow as hardware and software environments get more diverse.
As complexity increases, how can IT leaders continue to manage their IT environments in a cost-effective way?
IBM commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact study to examine the potential return on investment of IT support from IBM Multivendor Support Services to maintain hybrid IT infrastructures located in data centers, private clouds, public clouds, connected devices and more. According to the study, IT leaders have experienced three key benefits:
- 30% reduction in maintenance and support spending
- 22% reduction in time spent on hardware support tasks
- 21% reduction in time spent on vendor relationship management
1. Cut down on costs related to maintenance and support
Surveyed IT leaders indicated that their organizations previously relied on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and third parties to support their hardware environments. With hybrid IT support from IBM, they were able to consolidate these support contracts and reduce their overall spending on hardware support and maintenance.
“We really value the flexibility IBM provides,” said one IT director. “For example, if I initially purchase 10 licenses for device A and 10 licenses for device B, and then find I don’t need [all] 10 for device A… but I need 15 for device B, I am allowed to swap them. As our data center continues to grow and evolve, this is becoming increasingly valuable to us.”
Forrester Consulting: The Total Economic Impact™ Of IBM Hybrid IT Support
Above and beyond contract consolidation savings, the survey also found that IBM’s predictive maintenance, cognitive capabilities, proactive monitoring and asset and life-cycle management helped organizations save an average of $4.3 million over three years.
2. Spend less time on hardware support tasks
In addition to reducing IT support spending, the survey found that organizations were able to streamline inventory management tasks with IBM Multivendor Support Services.
“We are changing the way that we monitor from the infrastructure level to the application level,” said one chief technology officer. “IBM allows us to work with both teams to make sure we are providing the proper support for our software and hardware teams.”
With IBM’s proprietary asset management and support portal, organizations were able to reduce the time they spend on hardware support tasks and reallocate this time toward more productive tasks, according to the study.
3. Streamline vendor relationship management
When it comes to managing relationships with third-party support and OEMs, fewer points of contact means less time spent going back and forth among them. “If I want to address something in my hardware stack, I can go to a one-stop shop,” said a capacity infrastructure planner. “I am not having to tell a variety of vendors different stories. I have a single thread to work from.”
Consolidating IT support vendors to a single, central IT support system allows organizations to reduce the time they spend maintaining multiple support relationships—which, the survey found, led to an average $26,887 in savings.
Read the full report to learn more about how IT managers are using IBM Multivendor Support Services to combat complexity across their IT environments.
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