5 Reasons to Consider a Third-Party Maintenance Provider in 2023

Maintenance makes up a significant portion of any enterprise’s IT spending, which Gartner predicts will grow by 5.1 percent in 2023 to a total of $4.6 trillion.

With long lead times, supply issues, and an uncertain economic and political climate, businesses need to step back and rethink their core IT strategy, including their maintenance strategies. 

Why maintenance? It’s simple! 

Without reliable maintenance for your existing infrastructure, you run the risks of downtime, low productivity, and technical incompetence. If you’ve been relying on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for maintenance, you should consider moving to a third party like PivIT.

PivIT’s OneCall is a nimble maintenance program with many options, cost-saving advantages, and expert customer support.

There are many benefits to using a third-party maintenance (TPM) provider to maintain your critical IT infrastructure. But with the uncertainty this year poses, it may be the most logical move. 

In this article, we’ll examine the following five reasons how TPM can:

• Help with cost savings.
• Extend service life.
• Provide more flexibility and options.
• Offer multi-vendor support.
• Provide spare programs.

Need help finding a different article? Try these out:

• A Complete Guide To Improving Redundancy with EtherChannel Technology
• The 2023 Guide for Everything Related to the AAA Framework
• The High-Performance, Agile Aruba Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect

Significant Cost Savings

Significant cost savings are one of the most common reasons businesses choose TPM providers over OEMs. The latter can be costly and can come with strict terms and conditions. That’s not to say that OEM maintenance lacks quality — you only pay a lot less if you go with a third party instead. 

TPM providers can reduce the cost by up to 70 percent. While not all TPM providers are the same, the reliable ones would provide the same level of support as an OEM. 

Even though IT spending is poised to rise, throughout 2023, things could change. With inflation causing technology costs to rise, especially on the hardware side, the cost savings from TPM could go a long way in hedging the impact. 

You can spend all that money on more strategically important areas of business that bolster growth. The savings from maintenance, which comes under OpEx (operating expenses), can go towards CapEx (capital expenditure) for long-term benefits. 

An Extension of Service Life

Projections indicate that lead times will continue to be long, and shipments of new gear will last throughout 2023. What does that mean? 

If you have a refresh cycle planned for this year or the next, it may get postponed even further. Consequently, you’ll need to extend your current equipment beyond its end-of-service (EOS) timeline. 

Generally, TPM maintenance can also come in handy for extending the life of your so-called legacy equipment beyond its OEM-specified EOS date. 

For instance, network equipment like routers or switches typically have a service life of three to five years. 

However, that does not mean that they stop functioning after this time. You can consider a TPM provider to fill the gap. 

While in some cases it may be inevitable because of architectural complexities, using functioning legacy equipment may make economic sense in other instances. 

You can extend that equipment refresh cycle, especially if it’s non-critical, and save money. But that’s only feasible with the backing of a TPM provider who ensures the equipment doesn’t fail on you. 

More Flexibility and Options

Technology is moving at unprecedented speeds. Many enterprises in the IT sector and other industries have had to adopt new technologies, which can often complicate maintenance. OEMs aren’t highly flexible in this regard, as their terms are often better for them than the customer. 

What modern organizations need are options. Businesses may have a unique infrastructure with varying levels of complexity, which translates into similar complexities in maintenance. TPM providers can offer that flexibility that allows such companies to maintain their equipment better. 

Customized plans according to the specific needs of the enterprise not only result in cost savings and directly impact equipment and team performance. 

Helpful Multi-Vendor Support

More and more enterprises today have a multi-vendor IT infrastructure. In other words, their networks comprise equipment from various OEMs. You don’t have to be an expert to understand how such a scenario can become complicated from a maintenance point of view. 

Comparing single OEM vs. multiple OEM infrastructure is a separate debate, as both have pros and cons. However, as far as maintenance goes, managing care from multiple OEMs can quickly become complicated. 

In comparison, going with a TPM provider allows you to move maintenance for all equipment under one roof, regardless of the OEM. As most TPMs are independent of the OEMs, there’s no exclusivity. 

There’s one point of contact for maintaining the entire infrastructure — you have a cohesive maintenance strategy. 

OneCall takes multi-vendor support to the next level by allowing you to implement a hybrid maintenance strategy. It will enable you to combine its maintenance services with OEM support, benefiting you from both. The proprietary OneHub dashboard of OneCall also enables you to add OEM maintenance plans, so you have everything in one place.

Standout Spare Programs

As lead times for new equipment will continue to be longer in 2023, you’ll need more contingencies for your legacy equipment. OEM maintenance doesn’t guarantee a spare if equipment fails, and with supply issues rampant, getting your hands on a replacement device may become nearly impossible. 

Here is where TPM providers with spare programs come to save the day. It’s rare for even TPM, but those that provide guarantees for spares are decidedly more reliable than your OEMs. 

OEMs also want you to upgrade to new devices, which is better for their interest, so it doesn’t bode well for their business to guarantee spares for older devices. That’s not the case with third parties, however.

OneCall’s Sparing Integrity Program is a standout offering that guarantees spares for equipment. And that guarantee isn’t just a verbal or contractual term. You receive a serial number of the spare with its location, dedicated for your use. 

Unlike OEMs and other TPM providers, PivIT does not have to scramble to find a spare. If necessary, your spare will be shipped to you the next business day. 

While you may not require spares for every piece of equipment, having spares for critical devices that your entire network depends on is beneficial.

Take Your IT Maintenance to the Next Level With OneCall

If your woes with OEM maintenance have only increased with time, it’s high time you considered moving to OneCall. 

As an organization with a presence in major business regions, PivIT takes a global approach to maintenance which suits the needs of equally global IT teams. 

OneCall can provide legacy and new equipment maintenance from major OEMs like Cisco, Palo Alto, Juniper, and Aruba. Whether it’s computing, networking, or storing operations, you can be sure that the equipment running these functions is backed by expert support. 

Most importantly, OneCall offers significant cost savings with short-term and long-term maintenance that you wouldn’t find with OEM or other TPM providers. Expert engineers with decades of collective experience make up the OneCall team, who consider it their mission to go above and beyond in maintenance service. 

Consider OneCall for maintenance, and strengthen the backbone of your business — your IT infrastructure.