Solution Spotlight: Cisco SMARTnet Contract Renewal

Customer: Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Products Provider
Location: Northeast Ohio

Highlights

This healthcare services organization was approaching its Cisco SMARTnet contracts renewal. As a Cisco Gold Partner, MCPc helped the customer analyze the state of its current device coverage, secure a new agreement that cost-effectively covered all critical equipment and streamline the administration of its SMARTnet service.

Benefits

• MCPc leveraged its Cisco expertise to get the customer the most value, at the lowest price.
• Fragmented ownership of the SMARTnet agreement was replaced with a single point of contact, allowing contracts to be evaluated holistically
• Multiple SMARTnet contracts were consolidated into one, simplifying administration.

Business Need

This global 5,300-employee provider of healthcare and pharmaceutical products was approaching its Cisco SMARTnet contract renewal. The company’s existing portfolio consisted of more than 300 Cisco devices covered under several different contracts and spread across multiple corporate locations. As a result, the organization was looking for a partner that could:

1. Execute a comprehensive review of its SMARTnet contracts and associated devices.
2. Identify opportunities to optimize contracts to get the most value, at the lowest possible cost.
3. Act as a central point of contact for administering SMARTnet contracts.

Solution

Over the previous 10 years, the customer and MCPc had collaborated on several IT projects, including a recent Cisco wireless implementation. The success of these past projects and an established familiarity with the organization’s complete Cisco environment made MCPc the ideal choice to manage the SMARTnet renewal.

At the onset of the project, MCPc performed an assessment of the customer’s current SMARTnet state, in which all contracts and Cisco devices were inventoried and reviewed. From this analysis, MCPc provided the client a control sheet with up-to-date data on all covered Cisco equipment — including device number, and contract start and end dates — and a SMARTnet Scorecard that evaluated the efficiency of coverage and identified contract gaps. The Scorecard also detailed information on support cases opened by user, category and device, as well as labor by project — all of which are useful when optimizing SMARTnet contracts and deciding on coverage levels.

Next, the MCPc team reviewed each SMARTnet contract option — one-year, three-year and five-year — with the customer and determined that the three-year option would provide the most appropriate level of coverage within the best price structure for the customer’s specific environment.

Multi-year contracts often help organizations save money by locking in today’s SMARTnet prices for longer periods of time. They also decrease administrative costs by extending the time before the next needed contract assessment and update.

Results

Overall management of SMARTnet has become simpler and more efficient. While the customer’s previous SMARTnet agreement involved several different contracts,
it is now consolidated into one, streamlining administration. In addition, where ownership of the SMARTnet agreement was once fragmented between multiple people within the IT department, MCPc is now the single point of contact for all SMARTnet-related issues. This frees internal resources from the burden of administering the agreement, while assuring them that it’s being handled by a team of certified Cisco experts.

Finally, by leveraging MCPc’s strong relationship with Cisco, the customer was able to get the best possible SMARTnet rates available, making its contracts more cost-effective while meeting all of its unique coverage needs.

If your organization is nearing a SMARTnet contract renewal, Cisco Gold Partner MCPc can help you achieve the appropriate level of coverage at the best cost. Contact us today to speak with a SMARTnet expert.