A Guide to Choosing the Right Aftermarket Service Provider for Your IT Infrastructure

Network maintenance processes consist of a range of activities undertaken to keep enterprise operations running smoothly. While regular hardware maintenance involves running necessary updates and conducting performance audits, going beyond standard checklists is essential to ensure a well-connected, high-performing IT ecosystem.

Choosing the right vendor for your network maintenance and support processes can help foster high uptime and measurably improve hardware lifespan. A cost-effective and flexible solution can offer companies complete control of their equipment and stay ahead of the competition.

Let’s look at the importance of IT infrastructure support on organizations and its benefits in the long run:

• Helps troubleshoot and fix network issues
• Improves system performance over time with continuous monitoring and regular upgrades
• Ensures compliance with global and industry standards
• Establishes tight network security and safeguards confidential data
• Helps you achieve your growth objectives

Why Choose Aftermarket Services Over OEM for your Hardware Maintenance

While OEM vendors do offer hardware maintenance as part of post-warranty services, the TPM market is worth considering because of its benefits. Aftermarket services are a legitimate alternative to OEM and outperform the latter with increased ROI on investment, reduced cost, and better service delivery.

Some of the commonly-faced challenges with OEM maintenance include:

• Advanced hardware replacement: Many hardware manufacturers can tell you that the shelf life of networking equipment is much longer than OEM end-of-shelf-life predictions. Inaccurate analyses of hardware EoLs and EoSLs can hamper existing system operations and increase company costs.
• Massive support costs: Hardware maintenance processes are incredibly costly for organizations that partner with OEM vendors who follow rigid service policies. Research indicates that OEMs increase their hardware maintenance fees by 15% yearly in the initial five years after the hardware purchase. This is followed by increased pricing on equipment declared obsolete or at the end-of-life (EoL). These practices are not only highly cost-inefficient but also negatively impact equipment health.
• Slower response times: Organizations looking for quick technical assistance are often met with no support because of unclear timeframes specified by OEM vendors. Further, the complex service contracts make it extremely costly to avail of such assistance on an ad hoc basis.
• Confusing vendor contracts: Purchasing networking equipment from various vendors with specific OEM support contracts sooner than later becomes increasingly confusing and time-consuming because of the number of stakeholders involved. The time and resources could better be used in other mission-critical organizational processes.

Factors to Consider When Moving to the Aftermarket Services Approach

How can you make a smooth move to a relevant aftermarket service provider? Here are some factors to consider:

• Cost: The first and perhaps most important aspect for most organizations starting out is how much your aftermarket services will cost. While it is vital to ensure that your hardware maintenance process is top-notch, choosing a reliable service provider with proven expertise and reasonable pricing is crucial too.
• Reputation: Vendors with adequate industrial experience working with IT maintenance processes know a thing or two about how the infrastructure works. They can help you gain insights into your network topology, problem areas, and areas for enhancement. Always look for customer testimonials and case studies highlighting the vendor’s experience and expertise and map them with your requirements to help you make the right choice.
• Certification and accreditation: Keeping an eye out for relevant industry accreditation, such as ISO or SOC2, helps identify credible vendors. Valid certifications are a hallmark of high-quality and reliable services in compliance with global standards.
• Testing and sparing Process: Organizations must gain clarity on the availability and coverage of spare parts, testing methodologies, deployment timelines, and storage location of spare parts offered by vendors. These can help them predict how long it would take for the vendor to replace aging or faulty network parts and subsequently reduce downtime. Similarly, choosing vendors that employ adequate testing processes can help you ensure that your IT maintenance processes meet industry and company quality benchmarks.
• Industrial expertise: Most aftermarket service providers employ a skilled workforce to identify and rectify issues on the go. Aftermarket services also have the option for multi-vendor support, helping you make the best out of your contract with clearly defined, transparent objectives. This can help your organization massively save time and resources while helping you tackle any system challenges head-on.
• SLA flexibility: Flexible SLAs offered by aftermarket services providers largely help organizations simplify the maintenance contract processes. These agreements are customized to suit organization timeframes (monthly, quarterly, or yearly). Define coverage on physical assets and leverage onsite support and replacement of parts as needed. Flexible SLAs are suited for organizations with a pay-as-you-go model and priced only for the services availed, allowing for friendlier costing.
• Communication and Response Time (Customer Experience): How long you get back to the market largely depends on who handles your network maintenance processes. Ensuring quick response times and service updates from your vendor can help you gain better control of your network, build insights into what’s working and what’s not and get you back on track with operations faster.

Maximizing ROI on IT Hardware with RapidCare

IT management processes support the entire length and breadth of the network performance. It is becoming important for organizations to strategically choose the right vendor and rely on them to underpin faster operations and extend their EoSL while focusing on business-critical activities.

RapidCare®, from CXtec, is a leading aftermarket service offering customized hardware and data center maintenance support to help you optimize your system performance and network assets.

RapidCare can help you achieve the following:

• Flexible and transparent support contracts
• Manufacturer-certified hardware at a fraction of the cost
• Multiple service levels, with all-year-round technical support
• 60% lower maintenance spending, as compared to OEM providers
• Brand-agnostic engineers who can support your hardware maintenance journey with quick response times

CXtec is North America’s largest secondary market network hardware supplier with over 40 years of experience in helping clients overhaul and optimize their existing IT infrastructure in the most efficient manner possible. We offer complete packages for IT hardware lifecycle management. We can help you maximize ROI on your hardware investment with the promise of continued support and helping you achieve your green IT initiatives.

Connect with us to know more.