Scott Braden

Apr. 15,2013

So we begin Microsoft's fiscal 4th quarter, ending June 30. The largest percentage of Microsoft Enterprise Agreements expires during this quarter, and historically it's been Microsoft's most profitable quarter. This year has been distinguished by the ongoing economic malaise which is tightening IT budgets everywhere, even and especially for "infrastructure" software such as Windows, Office and the various Microsoft servers. With Windows 8 being perceived as a flawed OS and Office 2013 as a marginal upgrade based on the flawed Windows 8, and with the sticker shock that many clients are still facing as they transition from older, ...

Dave Young

Apr. 15,2013

In our November 2012 issue of The Net Effect, we published a White Paper titled “Top 10 Reasons Why Clients Spend WAY TOO MUCH...For Telecommunications”. This is the third in a series of blog entries that will explore each of these topics in more detail, moving on to #8: Poor Wireless Mobility Governance. How things have changed in a few short years. There was a time, not so long ago, that wireless mobility in the enterprise meant a Blackberry or a basic cell phone for voice calls and not much more. Access to data on the Blackberry didn’t amount to much because the web browsing interface was so basic and the “app” was not yet part of our ...

Matt Hartzman

Mar. 18,2013

Healthcare organizations pay an unnecessary premium for IT systems, software and services. The reasons are many; NET(net) identifies the Top 12 in our White Paper. With all the focus on reducing Healthcare costs, it may surprise you to learn that of the 30 industries we recently sampled, Healthcare organizations actually pay more for technology than any other industry. Our analysis shows Healthcare organizations pay an average 17% more than that of the other 29 industries we sampled, and 33% more than the industry with the lowest average costs (food service). In this blog series, we outline why we believe Healthcare providers pay way too ...

Steven Zolman

Mar. 18,2013

If you are a large SAP customer, there is likely a latent gold mine of savings opportunities hidden deep down inside your SAP agreements. Did you know that for ERP Application licensing alone, not counting all the variations of licensing definitions we have seen over the years (literally thousands of different definitions of what is a limited professional user as an example), there are still 34 major licensing classes for SAP users? Most clients, even those that closely examine their user demographics, struggle to make sense of their own deployments. The kind of convoluted deployments we routinely see in our client base, combined with the ...

Steven Zolman

Feb. 22,2013

In last month’s blog post, “How a 5% Performance Improvement Can Result in a 50% Savings”, we discussed how the economics of IT deals of all kinds (Cloud, SaaS, Hardware, Software, Services, Outsourcing and Telecom, among others) can be dramatically improved with very small strategic improvements in the process of IT optimization. We asked you to stay tuned to this month’s newsletter, and the blog post, “The Rise of the Disruptive Supplier”, mainly because optimization itself is often thought to be (and many times is) a unilateral activity. Certainly it is always a best practice to understand the macro market conditions to ensure the ...

Matt Hartzman

Feb. 22,2013

Healthcare organizations pay an unnecessary premium for IT systems, software and services. The reasons are many; NET(net) identifies the Top 12 in our White Paper. With all the focus on reducing Healthcare costs, it may surprise you to learn that of the 30 industries we recently sampled, Healthcare organizations actually pay more for technology than any other industry. Our analysis shows Healthcare organizations pay an average 17% more than that of the other 29 industries we sampled, and 33% more than the industry with the lowest average costs (food service). In this blog series, we outline why we believe Healthcare providers pay way too ...

Dave Young

Feb. 22,2013

In our November 2012 issue of The Net Effect, we published a White Paper titled “Top 10 Reasons Why Clients Spend WAY TOO MUCH...For Telecommunications”. This is the second in a series of blog entries that will explore each of these topics in more detail, moving on to #9 Unused Services. If you consider the volume and multitude of service types of telecommunications consumed by the average enterprise and then factor in the number of telecommunications suppliers that make up the typical portfolio of telecommunications in the enterprise, particularly for organizations with many remote locations, it’s no wonder its challenging to keep on top of ...

Dave Young

Jan. 21,2013

In our November 2012 issue of The Net Effect, we published a White Paper titled “Top 10 Reasons Why Clients Spend WAY TOO MUCH...For Telecommunications.” This is the first in a series of blog entries that will explore each of these topics in more detail, starting with #10 Incorrect Rate Implementation in New Agreement. You would certainly want to believe that for organizations which have been around for a very long time, implementing a new agreement into their billing systems would be a well-documented and routine process for telecommunications companies. However, more often than not, this is not the case; and as a consumer of these services ...

Matt Hartzman

Jan. 21,2013

Healthcare organizations pay an unnecessary premium for IT systems, software and services. The reasons are many; NET(net) identifies the Top 12 in our White Paper. With all the focus on reducing Healthcare costs, it may surprise you to learn that of the 30 industries we recently sampled, Healthcare organizations actually pay more for technology than any other industry. Our analysis shows Healthcare organizations pay an average 17% more than that of the other 29 industries we sampled, and 33% more than the industry with the lowest average costs (Food Service). In the first posting of this blog series, we outline why we believe Healthcare ...

Steven Zolman

Jan. 9,2013

The Hurt Suspend disbelief for just a moment and hear me when I say that most clients wildly overpay for technology. Not you, you say? Well, allow me to add meat to this alleged bone of contention between us, by further quantifying that statement. In a recently completed 36-month study of field results in actual client dealings, we empirically demonstrated that clients significantly overpaid in IT investments, by averaging 40% achieved savings in over 504 managed field engagements. These were not the top 504 savings examples, rather a comprehensive selection of field opportunities ensuring a representative and varied sample with no improper ...