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SEVEN MYTHS ABOUT

THIRD-PARTY MAINTENANCETHIRD-PARTY MAINTENANCE

7 MYTHS ABOUT THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCEOrganizations facing IT equipment and software maintenance challenges often feel more at ease with the support of an OEM maintenanceprovider than those of a third party maintenance provider. While OEMs certainly claim their key advantages, third party maintenance providers are able to give superior support and better value through customized, quality solutions that cater to each customer’s unique IT environment. Solutions provided by third party IT maintenance providers address the bigger picture of an organization’s IT infrastructure, giving customers a better combination of maintenance options, service level agreements, and overall pricing structure.

The following are seven myths regarding third party maintenance (TPM) versus OEM service.

MYTH ONE:THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE ENGINEERS ARE LESS SKILLED THAN OEM ENGINEERS.

In contrast to an OEM engineer’s focus on a single platform, third party maintenance engineers have in-depth skill and training on many different platforms. Third party maintenance engineers must be prepared to walk into any variety of IT environments and competently address multi-vendor technical challenges. This ability requires years of vendor-specific training and real world problem-solving experience in multi-platform environments. OEM engineers are not required to be experts in server and storage equipment that is not their own brand, so their solutions may be limited in scope.

Third party maintenance engineers are certified to service multiple manufacturer gear in order to provide superior technical support, health checks and the ability to restore data center uptime quickly.

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MYTH TWO:OEM MAINTENANCE OFFERS THE BEST SERVICE AVAILABLE.

When working with OEM service providers, conflicting interests may compromise the customer experience. In many scenarios, it profits the OEM to up-sell or replace hardware rather than to service it, even when this clearly puts the customer at a cost disadvantage.

OEM service level agreements often work against the customer, providing a minimal level of support in order to keep costs down and profits up for the OEM. This approach results in more time and overhead spent enforcing the agreement terms and conditions, engaging in negotiation and/or disputes with OEM support centers and time spent on trivial issues - time that could otherwise have been used to fix the technical issue at hand to restore uptime.

Third party maintenance providers are in business to provide service and support – and their solutions focus on the best interests of their customers.

MYTH THREE:

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THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PROVIDERS HAVE A SLOWER RESPONSE TIME.

A slow response is typical of an OEM, not a third party maintenance provider. OEM customer service and technical support departments focus on minimizing their costs by moving customer inquiries through a chain of command, starting with the least skilled support staff. It is common for OEMs to dispatch field technicians only after a lengthy qualification process. Many OEM technical support call centers are outsourced and trained overseas to further offset their costs, leading to a sub-par customer experience with delayed responses and frustration.

Third party maintenance providers must be more direct and customer-friendly in their response, keeping the customers’ needs clearly in focus and providing resolution without delay.

MYTH FOUR:OEM MAINTENANCE PRIORITIES ARE COMPARABLE TO THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PRIORITIES.

Since a large portion of OEM resources are directed toward the research and development of new products, along with sales and marketing efforts; service and support is often relegated to the bottom rung of the priority ladder.

OEMs often focus on pushing new product lines and relying on a revenue model built on upselling new products, rather than supporting and extending the life of existing equipment. If tasked with supporting a legacy product, many OEMs will charge a customer an hourly-billed service rate.

With no hardware biases and no costly overhead to maintain, third party maintenance providers are well-positioned to put the customer’s needs first and they can offer quality support at a lower cost. Service is their number one priority.

MYTH FIVE:

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MYTH SIX:THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PROVIDERS OFFER LITTLE STRATEGIC VALUE.

When analyzing a customer’s support needs, third party maintenance providers take a comprehensive approach to solving problems. They are able to suggest and implement measures that can save time and money in the long run, without sacrificing functionality. Being able to successfully extend the life of equipment, third party maintenance providers are able to help customers review and plan for the best time for an upgrade or replacing equipment, rather than being forced to take on costly expenditures based on a typical hardware refresh cycle.

Third party IT maintenance providers can spend more time on analysis as opposed to replacement, helping customers to realize cost-savings through innovative reconfiguration and incremental upgrades. The unbiased solutions of third party maintenance providers can result in the better use of existing systems by lengthening the life of equipment that would have otherwise been replaced by the OEM.

THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PROVIDERS USE LOWER QUALITY PARTS OR HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO PARTS.

Third party maintenance providers do not use lower quality parts as the cost of labor to repair or replace such parts, combined with the resulting customer dissatisfaction, would far outweigh the savings which lower quality parts could offer. It is in the third party maintenance provider’s best interest to find solutions that ultimately ensure the success of the customers’ data center operations.

Third party maintenance providers are able to source parts from their own inventory and/or partner networks at a competitive price and can share the cost advantage with their customers. Additionally, third party maintenance providers are empowered to think creatively, offering solutions from a variety of vendors, as opposed to working within the confines of an OEM’s preferred, yet limited, service approach.

MYTH SEVEN:THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE PROVIDERS ARE LIMITED IN THEIR ABILITY TO SUPPORT END OF LIFE EQUIPMENT.

End-of-life (EOL) refers to when a product is no longer available for sale from the manufacturer and End-of-Support (EOS) refers to the date when the manufacturer will no longer provide service or support for that product. OEMs may still offer maintenance support for EOL products.

Many IT managers have EOL or EOS equipment that still meets their business needs. A third party maintenance provider is able to continue to support the equipment and keep it operational. For EOS equipment, third party maintenance providers have access to the parts needed to service the equipment.

The myth behind this fear of limited ability is based on the fact that OEMs have only one vendor – themselves. When OEMs stop the production of a product or run out of parts, they stop servicing it. Many third party maintenance providers have large local part inventories, along with access to a network of nationwide vendors that also maintain inventory of these parts. This business models allows third party maintenance providers to support equipment long after the EOS date and help customers to reduce the time and costs associated with purchasing, installing and configuring new hardware.

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7 MYTHS ABOUT THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE