According to the respondees, around 60 percent are now electing to use Third-Party Maintenance (TPM), while 53 percent now regularly purchase pre-owned equipment. The top three drivers identified as adoption indicators of TPM include a greater focus on reducing operational expenses, improved support offerings from independent maintenance providers and positive experiences with prior-generation hardware.
“Navigating through today’s complex landscape, IT buying decision makers face growing challenges. They need to take into account capabilities and quality of technology as well as cost, all while delivering business value and ongoing ROI,” says David Howard, Regional Director at Curvature UK. “This independent research underlines that there is a strong momentum for alternative procurement and support models that help customers meet their expectations. Curvature helps those companies with services including Third-Party Maintenance and pre-owned equipment, to build up cost efficient multi-vendor environments including network, server and storage hardware.”
The Dimensional Research shows growing adaption in 2015 and strong growth potential in 2016 for pre-owned equipment and maintenance alternatives, including the following trends:
- 96% see advantages in multi-vendor data centres including optimised spending, reducing risk of vendor lock-in, and retaining vendor flexibility
- 92% use pre-owned equipment, third-party maintenance, or multi-vendor infrastructure in their data centres today including
- 53% purchase pre-owned equipment
- 60% use third-party maintenance
- 85% have multi-vendor environments
- 90% see benefits in third-party maintenance of data centre equipment, including
- Opportunity to lower costs (69%)
- Cost optimisation through hybrid maintenance, including both independent and OEM support (42%)
- Ability to work with a vendor focused only on maintenance (35%)
- Retaining vendor flexibility for future needs (34%)
- Reduced risk caused by vendor lock-in (31%)
- 60% increased use of pre-owned equipment, third-party maintenance, or multi-vendor infrastructure alternatives in 2015 and 54% plan to increase in 2016
While companies are embracing these non-traditional approaches to data centre purchasing and support, there is still room for growth. Just over half (55%) still maintain a single-vendor approach for at least some of the equipment in their data centres, with networking equipment being the most likely candidate for sole source (40%) followed by servers (36%) and storage (29%).
But the trend is moving away from these traditional ways of purchasing equipment. Most companies that use purchasing or support alternatives for their data centres continue to plan increasing use in 2015 (60%). This looks set to continue in 2016 with more than half (54%) actively planning to invest more in purchasing and support alternatives for their data centres.
Vendor Requirements vs Buyer’s Flexibility and Choice
The research also demonstrates how Equipment buyers continue to seek far greater flexibility and choice. The growth is driven by a wide range of factors including new technologies that enable flexible architectures, need for negotiating power, and availability of better alternatives that they find in the use of pre-owned equipment and TPM alternatives. According to the research, making decisions based on process rather than IT need is common, including internal purchasing processes (56%), vendor requirements (55%) and internal policies (52%). 42% say procurement processes are getting better and only 14% think they are getting worse.
