Summary
- OEM price increases are putting pressure on IT budgets, making predictable pricing a top priority for organizations.
- Cisco buying models, including Cisco Enterprise Agreements, help lock in pricing and discounts to improve IT cost optimization and reduce renewal risk.
- Limited visibility into contracts and usage prevents organizations from fully optimizing Cisco buying models and lifecycle strategies.
- A software and maintenance lifecycle assessment provides the visibility needed to align Cisco lifecycle services, optimize spend, and maximize long-term value.
Are outdated buying models contributing to rising Cisco costs?
As OEM price increases continue to add pressure to IT budgets, Cisco buying models have become an important method of controlling costs. IT decision-makers accustomed to occasional adjustments are now facing a steady upward trend across both software subscriptions and maintenance contracts year after year. For most organizations, the impact is not just higher costs, but a growing lack of control over how those costs evolve over time.
But the issue goes deeper than rising prices. The fact is, most organizations are still buying in ways that leave them exposed to increases at every renewal cycle.
In a typical environment, software and maintenance are purchased incrementally. Contracts are spread across different timelines, often tied to individual projects or hardware refreshes. Over time, this creates a fragmented landscape where renewals happen continuously rather than strategically. Each renewal point becomes an opportunity for pricing to reset, often at higher list prices and with less favorable discounts. Without a unified strategy, organizations find themselves reacting to cost increases instead of managing them.
Controlling costs with a Cisco Enterprise Agreement (EA)
Cisco’s Enterprise Agreement (EA) programs were designed to address exactly this challenge. With Cisco EAs, organizations can lock in pricing and discount structures for a defined term. This could be three, five, or even seven years, depending on the strategy.
This is not just a financial convenience. It fundamentally changes how organizations plan and consume technology. Instead of renegotiating at each renewal and absorbing incremental increases, pricing becomes predictable and insulated from market fluctuations. That level of predictability becomes increasingly valuable in an environment where OEM pricing continues to climb.
While the ability to create pricing stability is at the center of the EA approach, the value of a Cisco EA is often underutilized, as many organizations still don’t have a strategic buying structure in place.
Visibility is the key to unlocking Cisco value
When it comes to cost-optimizing your Cisco environment, the barrier isn’t access to Cisco programs. The real barriers are visibility and alignment. Most environments contain several complicating factors, including:
- Overlapping agreements
- Inconsistent coverage levels
- Limited insight into actual usage
This lack of clarity leads to missed opportunities for consolidation, cost control, and long-term planning. Without a clear understanding of what you own, what you consume, and how contracts are structured, designing an effective buying strategy is nearly impossible. What’s more, the same lack of visibility keeps you from knowing whether your Cisco investments are aligning with your desired outcomes and business goals.
The stability benefits of a Cisco Enterprise Agreement are clear, but most organizations aren’t able to internally produce the visibility they need to create true optimization and cost reduction in their Cisco environment. GDT helps bring clarity and strategy to what is often a highly fragmented software and maintenance environment.
Our process typically begins with a Software and maintenance lifecycle assessment, which provides a comprehensive view across the Cisco environment, including the following areas:
- Install base
- Contract landscape
- Software consumption
More than just an inventory exercise, the assessment is designed to uncover misalignment, identify savings opportunities, and determine where enterprise agreements or other Cisco buying models can deliver the most value. In many cases, this process surfaces meaningful cost-reduction opportunities while also simplifying how technology is managed over time.
From there, the focus shifts to building a Cisco buying strategy that aligns with both current needs and future growth. This includes structuring agreements to lock in pricing, standardize discounts, and create flexibility for expansion without financial penalties. It also involves ensuring our customer has the tools and processes in place to manage their Cisco agreements effectively.
Cisco lifecycle services with GDTamp
Visibility is about more than your initial purchase and contract renewals. Visibility ensures you get what you pay for, and that your utilization lines up with your business decision-making.
GDT delivers Cisco lifecycle services through the GDTamp platform to enable our customers with real-time insight into their assets, contracts, and consumption. This creates a single source of truth, which enables several crucial benefits:
- Decision-making that aligns with business goals
- Accurate forecasting for future planning
- Proactive management of renewals and True Forward events
This level of real-time insights lets organizations move away from the reactive purchasing patterns that lead to complex environments and out-of-control costs. Equipped with real data and a strategic licensing approach, GDT and Cisco customers can benefit from more control and optimized costs when it comes to their software and maintenance investments.
Navigate rising Cisco software costs confidently with GDT
Rising OEM costs are not going away. In many ways, they are becoming a defining characteristic of the software and maintenance landscape. The organizations that navigate this most effectively will not be the ones negotiating harder at renewal. They will be the ones who took the time and found the right resources to rethink how they buy in the first place.
If you are looking at upcoming renewals or trying to make sense of a complex contract environment, now is the right time to take a step back and evaluate whether your current approach is setting you up for long-term success.
By leveraging the right Cisco buying models, locking in pricing and discounts, and aligning spend with actual consumption through mechanisms like True Forward, it is possible to bring predictability and control back into the equation. And, with a partner like GDT for visibility and lifecycle management, you can trust you’re getting the most value out of your Cisco investments.
