Is there a way of getting better support with less admin?

Nearly all companies have IT infrastructures with multiple technologies from multiple vendors, supported by multiple services contracts. Managing such a complex support environment can get complicated, time-consuming and costly.

IDC reports that 93% of IT staff time is spent on routine support and installation tasks – just keeping the IT lights on. A mere 7% is left over for other management tasks including innovation and add value to the business.[1]

It’s easy to lose focus on what your IT department should be doing to add more value – things like innovation and transformation. You want your people to spend more time making the business better and less time just managing support contracts.

As hybrid IT environments become the enterprise norm, vendor-specific support becomes less relevant. You want the whole environment supported, so that it supports business processes end to end. And you want this done in the most efficient way possible.

Many contracts make for inefficient support

Vendors only support their own equipment. But your systems probably consist of multiple vendors’ equipment. If something goes wrong, you want the whole system working, not just one bit.

Having multiple vendor support plans means no single support contractor is responsible for getting the whole system working. In this scenario, the only party carrying end-to-end accountability is you.

Using multiple vendor-branded services could mean many contracts for you to manage, all with different end dates – an administration burden you could do without.

Quite often vendors only offer billing in a limited set of currencies. Not only can this make budgeting and cost allocation harder, but fluctuating exchanges rate can wreak havoc on your budgets when you’re not paying in your local currency, not to mention customs duties and import taxes.

Many OEM vendors may only offer support in English. Language barriers between you and your support contractor can cause confusion, inaccuracies, and slow down resolution.

Some of the other disadvantages of vendor support plans

Multiple support plans spanning across multiple OEM vendors doesn’t provide you with full visibility of your incident management process. One vendor might not know how the other is getting on with fixing their bit of the problem. This slows down resolution times and leaves you feeling out of control.

Using multiple OEM support plans gives you no end-to-end view of the live status of your entire infrastructure. There’s not one management portal for you to view status, place requests, monitor progress. Individual vendor portals only give you visibility of their specific services.

Is there a better, smarter way?

Absolutely. With Dimension Data’s Uptime you can unify support for your whole covered estate under one global contract that covers all your vendors’ equipment.

We integrate our service management system with yours and all your vendors’ for automated ticket transfer. This speeds up MTTR by 27% and increases client satisfaction by 10%.[2] We can give you a single view of the whole resolution process through our award-winning management portal, Manage Centre.

We offer support in 14 languages and can bill you in any currency you like. We’re highly automated for faster and more accurate support, and give you proactive support services that move you towards the predictive, pre-emptive support model you’d love to have.