Four Surprising Benefits of CDW Technology Services

It’s not particularly rare or novel for overburdened IT shops to outsource some IT services to keep from being overwhelmed. But the drivers for working with an external partner are changing. Whereas companies in the past often were looking simply to save money, organizations today are more likely seeking a strategic partner.

According to Deloitte, only 1 in 3 executives say that cost cutting is a top driver of managed services, compared with 62 percent who cite the increasing pace of technological change and 56 percent who cite the need to access new capabilities.

Some CDW Technology Support (CTS) customers initially come to us to cut costs. But when they renew their contracts each year, they tend to cite benefits such as:

Many companies begin by contracting directly with vendors for IT support. However, some large vendors have changed their service offerings in recent years, switching to flat-fee, unlimited-support plans. For organizations that submit a large number of service tickets, such plans might be a good fit. However, many companies look at external support as a kind of insurance plan to help them out in unexpected emergencies, making it unlikely that they will ever maximize the value of a flat-fee offering. CTS allows companies to contract for a specific number of hours each year depending on their needs, with the option to add more.

CTS customers receive access to Inscape, CDW’s proprietary multicloud management platform, at no added cost. The solution streamlines the administration of an organization’s multiple public cloud environments in one console, allowing customers to make machine learning-powered cost predictions, set parameters for sizing virtual machines, and access license and invoice portals that simplify basic management tasks.

While most large vendors offer some form of IT service, their main focus will always be on developing new products. As a result, customers sometimes find that they have to wait for days before an engineer is assigned to their case. By contrast, we assign engineers within hours of receiving a call. And if a ticket is urgent — for example, if a customer’s email system is down — we will often have multiple engineers assigned within 15 minutes. We have the resources and expertise to effectively tackle nearly any issue that arises, but individual CTS teams are small enough to offer a level of personalization and responsiveness you might expect from a local provider.

That said, some issues need to be resolved within a technology provider’s environment. In these instances, we’re able to open up a support ticket directly with the vendor, and then bring our customer into those support calls to make sure that everyone stays on the same page. Often, prospective customers don’t realize that we have the ability to escalate their cases directly to vendors when needed. It’s not something we need to do for most tickets, but when we do, it’s a game changer.

Story by David Romano, Tony Suffoletto and Rob Vogl