Introduction
Rapid evolution of information technology demands the Enterprise IT Procurement function to consider new paradigms in sourcing hardware, especially the servers, PCs, and printers and peripherals. A holistic IT hardware procurement strategy that triangulates accurate demand planning, purchasing and ongoing service management costs while contributing to the environmental initiatives, will prepare companies to efficiently and cost-effectively use technology in the future.
GEP's work in the area of procurement of servers suggests that in order to maximize value, companies should take a long-term approach towards making data center capital investments. Specifically, companies should take into account the total lifetime cost of servers and extract uniform discounts for large implementations from suppliers with global reach. They also need to make significant improvements in forward planning of data center and server needs in order to get the most from capital investments in this area. For PC procurement, companies can leverage commoditization of PCs to decrease acquisition costs and adhere to three-year PC upgrade rates for optimizing support and out-of-warranty expenses. Companies should accurately assess demand for portable computing devices to constantly improve mobile workforce productivity. In the case of printer procurement, our experience suggests that companies should be disciplined about deploying managed print solutions with the right service levels and selecting environmentally friendly suppliers.
The white paper discusses best practices and provides market update on Enterprise IT Hardware Procurement.