Public sector client saves $218K with Cisco EA
About the Customer
Customer Challenges
As an organization grows, it often finds itself spending an increasing amount of time managing support contracts across multiple vendors. This can lead to visibility challenges, inconsistent support levels, operational complexity, and lackluster ROI.
Such was the case for our public sector customer. To support a growing population, their Cisco estate had expanded. But fragmented, a-la-carte contracts had led to inconsistent support levels, heightened operational burden, and limited visibility across their install base. Increasingly, they struggled to track critical renewal dates, plan for hardware refreshes, and achieve maximum value of their investments.
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Furthermore, complexity increased the risk to operational continuity, especially critical for essential services. And with several Cisco support contracts approaching expiration, our customer needed to act quickly to avoid service disruption and potential security vulnerabilities.
CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS
Our customer needed a low-maintenance, cost-effective way to manage its Cisco environment. They wanted to alleviate the operational burden of managing multiple support contracts and renewals and sought a simplified, long-term solution that would ensure consistent coverage and minimal administrative overhead. They wanted a consolidated agreement that would provide:
- Predictable costs
- Improved ROI
- Extended contract duration
- A streamlined way to handle future Cisco licensing
- Consistent support levels
- Increased visibility and control
SOLUTION: Software & maintenance lifecycle assessment and EA consolidation
GDT’s Cisco buying program experts kicked off the engagement with a software and maintenance lifecycle assessment. This complimentary, automated assessment provided a full picture of their Cisco estate and surfaced opportunities to save money and streamline management overhead.
Based on lifecycle assessment findings and our customer’s needs and pain points, GDT modeled out three full-term EA options: three-, five-, and seven-year plans. Each option included detailed ROI projections, annual payment structures, and future cost-avoidance modeling. These models helped our customer visualize the long-term value and trade-offs associated with each term, enabling them to choose the option that would deliver the greatest benefits.
Ultimately, our customer chose to consolidate their contracts into a single, customized five-year EA that also included annual invoicing. Additionally, GDT proposed a SmartNet co-term contract to standardize hardware support across the environment. This gave them confidence in support levels while supporting operational continuity.
GDT also onboarded the customer to our proprietary asset management platform, GDTamp, giving them a single-pane view into their Cisco asset inventory, support coverage, EoX timelines, and EA consumption. This eliminated manual tracking and positioned them for smoother contract governance moving forward.
Benefits
By aligning its technology investment strategy with a five-year Cisco EA and SmartNet support co-term structure, our customer realized substantial business value. Following the EA’s execution, our customer saw immediate ROI: their first post-agreement project was 29% less expensive than it would have been without the EA, thanks to the locked-in pricing and tier upgrades. Additional benefits included:
- $115,000 in software savings, a 15.57% reduction compared to a-la-carte pricing
- $102,627 in support savings, a 11.76% reduction compared to not bundling this with the EA
- Better software discounts locked in for the entire termBetter software discounts locked in for the entire term
- Compliance with our customer’s budgeting process and public sector procurement rules
- Projected future savings of 29% by leveraging Cisco’s True Forward process to avoid paying for software at the point of sale
Through the EA, our customer also gained access to advanced Cisco purchasing mechanisms:
- True Forwards, enabling growth without retroactive charges and saving up to 25% on future software and support
- Value Shift, allowing unused license value to be reallocated to other Cisco technologies during the EA term
- Auto co-terming, ensuring all recurring Cisco subscriptions align to a single end date, further simplifying renewal operations
Lastly, GDTamp provided our customer full visibility into their Cisco assets, licenses, and contract timelines. This real-time insight positioned them to better govern their environment, plan future investments, and ensure compliance.
In total, the engagement delivered:
Over $218,000 in projected cost savings
Locked pricing and contract consolidation for reduced complexity
Enhanced flexibility and efficiency via Cisco’s advanced EA capabilities
Full lifecycle visibility and contract governance via GDTamp
Save 15% or more across your Cisco estate
We’ve found that the typical Cisco customer has 25+ end dates across 23+ contracts worth over $11 million, with 58% of recently purchased assets lacking adequate OEM coverage. By consolidating a la carte investments into cost-effective EAs, the average customer can save 15%. That’s more than $1.75 million.
Our Cisco software and maintenance lifecycle assessment combines an automated review of your Cisco estate with GDT Cisco buying program expertise. Together, we’ll explore opportunities to save money, time, and hassle by consolidating your Cisco software and maintenance contracts into enterprise agreements. We’ll also illustrate how GDT can help you achieve outcomes like license optimization, standardized support, and streamlined software asset management.
Schedule a complimentary software and maintenance lifecycle assessment