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29 Apr 2009
Businesses increasingly rely on an extensive IT infrastructure just to stay operational, and controlling the costs is a constant challenge. It is all the harder for global companies managing many different sites and teams.
In the coming quarters, companies will look to make savings wherever
possible.
All kinds of computer equipment and related purchases, including services, are
in decline.
The challenge for organisations is how to save on their software, which represents a considerable cost that Forrester Research, for instance, last year predicted would be cut to two per cent of previous spend in 2009.
The actual roll-out of the software is often the most unappealing side of acquiring new or revamping old software for an organisation. While some businesses can introduce software overnight using automation, many still manually install software on PCs across the entire company.
This can take at least an hour for each user PC, which can add up to weeks, if not months, of effort across an entire business.
Resellers can help their customers with this problem by either automating the roll-out or offering professional services across the whole implementation.
Another area where resellers can prove their mettle to customers is with software deployments. This is one of the most common – and riskiest – areas of IT.
If software packages are not configured properly, they can crash mission-critical applications.
IBM once said that 28 per cent of application failures are related to installation and configuration errors. Yet many software producers rely on home-grown or out-of-date installations that increase their support costs.
Desktop management software or disk imaging applications can make the job less painful but take too long.
As a VAR or systems integrator, helping customers with software configuration will lead to additional sales. A good VAR installing a moderate package will achieve a better result than a moderate VAR installing a good package, simply because they will have a better understanding of the tasks the package has to handle.
Resellers can not only help their customers by selling the actual software itself, but by also providing assistance along every step of the implementation process.
Vincent Smyth is EMEA general manager at Acresso Software
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