When the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to adapt to a remote workforce, IT teams had to shelve current projects and initiatives to accommodate a virtual environment. Two years later, millions have settled into the hybrid way of working, and businesses seek efficiency and cost savings in data centre management.

Many companies do not realise that they’re paying for the same support services more than once. For example, if you have an IT support contract with one vendor and your phone system is provided by another vendor, you already pay for IT support twice. Consolidating these two contracts on the same terms will make it easier to manage a business’s IT needs, and this type of project is something 101 Data Solutions can implement.

In October 2019, Gartner published a market guide regarding third-party support (TPM) and maintenance services for IBM, Oracle, and SAP software. This report explains why you should strongly consider it for your organisation. It’s a way of cutting costs, avoiding unnecessary upgrades, and taking back control of your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) requirements.

Third-party data centre hardware maintenance (TPM) provides an alternative to the standard original equipment manufacturer (OEM) post-warranty coverage for storage, servers and networking hardware, with potential cost savings of up to 30-40% vs OEM coverage. 101 Data Solutions offer a means to extend the life of data centre hardware with short-term contracts to suit a business’s specific requirements. Therefore, TPM gives companies flexibility during hardware refreshes or cloud migrations.

Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, a client of 101 Data Solutions, wanted to extend the lifecycle of their data centre infrastructure to allow more time to review the marketplace for suitable storage and server infrastructure. All service contracts were consolidated to a single contract 24x7x4 Hour-Fix service level with a unified end date. Any systems coming out of the contract were easily added, regardless of the brand and system type. 101 Data Solutions also provided the organisation with emergency engineering for hardware currently not under support as a value add. As a result, Kings College could save a lot of money and time that would otherwise have been wasted by taking the traditional route.

Key benefits of consolidating IT contracts through Third-Party Maintenance

• Simplifies vendor management. A single contract with multiple vendors is much easier for you as the business owner and staff to track and update what needs to be done.
• Faster response times. When companies have multiple vendor contracts for IT support, each vendor is responsible for different areas of IT support, like hardware and software maintenance, data backup and recovery or TV/Internet wiring. As a result, when an issue is raised, there might be a hold time of 20 minutes before someone can help. However, with a single vendor contract for all IT needs, businesses will only experience the hold time once – with the company best suited to help with the problem at hand.
• Knowledge of what’s covered under warranty and what isn’t. With so many vendor contracts under one roof, it can be challenging to keep track of what’s covered by warranty and what isn’t; consolidating contracts through TPM solves that problem.
• Cost savings. Companies save money by not overpaying for unused services, and this is because some providers charge extra just because they’re bundling in other services that may not be needed at the time.
• Prevents data loss. If businesses have data stored on-site, there is a risk of this being lost, whether through accidental deletion, a hardware failure, or a hack. 101 Data Solutions, a third-party company, will ensure that the business systems are up-to-date and backed up, which means less chance of any possible losses.

Therefore, consolidating your company’s IT contracts through third-party maintenance packages provided by 101 Data solutions means you’ll benefit from an expert who can do the work for you at a much lower price than if you hired someone internally and requires less effort from your team.