There is no compromise for telecommunication service providers (TSPs) when it comes time to provide products and services for their thousands of customers. They must act quickly and continually to supply comprehensive, reliable, and quality products for their solutions–painstakingly taking into consideration distribution channels for certified products, timely delivery, and operational savings to boost profits.
Time is money and businesses today must go to market quickly, react sooner then the competition, and respond to customer demand in a timely fashion. After talking to one TSP, we found out that working with Dell often meant spending a lot of time going to different locations as Dell was spread across more than one supplier. Critical time was spent looking at products and design parameters. Additional time was required for Dell to build a prototype ‘white box’ solution just to see if it would work. Comparing this with HP, this TSP was instead able to go directly to the server family group, pull up the specifications, and select the parts, service, support, and add-ons quickly–easily saving 30-50% during the design of a valid configuration. A simple run through of HP’s configuration tool was all that was required to certify the solution. Interesting to note, Dell absolutely will not integrate with third-party equipment–putting a third-party video or audio card in there would invalidate the product warranty.
When push comes to shove there is nothing worse than having a customer in need. For many companies, being first to market and getting product to customers faster translates into more available revenue. And if a customer were to switch to a competitor, losses could add up into the millions. Having two competitors lined up, this TSP wisely chooses the HP and Bell Micro combination. HP was selected for their global support, product capability, efficient footprint, product quality, and product availability. And for all the right distribution reasons, Bell Micro was selected. Case in point as this TSP had a customer in dire need of 2 configured servers for a demo. With the added configuration requirement of “how fast can you get this to us”, Bell Micro was able to deliver the servers within 5 business days. A task not easily accomplished in the real-world.
Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. But at least in the case of doing business with an OEM-Ready distributor you save by leveraging external resources. Bell Micro is able to do the legwork for a conservative overhead cost. Bell Micro’s willingness to devote and dedicate time within the design and review process, and be available to talk through configuration options, has saved TSPs time and resources that can be directed elsewhere–saving as much as four days in the design phase alone. Breaking down additional services, this TSP has conservatively quantified a 2-3% in logistics and inventory overhead savings as well as saving 5-6% in integration of services for global availability.
Talk can be cheap. But in the case of this TSP utilizing HP and Bell Micro: iron sharpens iron. This case of a TSP OEM taking advantage of the power of an OEM-Ready distributor (Bell Micro) that has built a strong relationship with a brand name vendor (HP) is not uncommon. Many OEMs are quickly finding out that having a distributor, who has already built the infrastructure and relationship with brand name vendors, enables them to take advantage superior support and services not easily obtained by the OEM alone.