Third party maintenance providers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to supplying their customers with replacement hardware from the OEM, since they must buy through resellers. The fact is that most manufacturers follow a practice that doesn’t offer the same deal on the exact same products for the same client to all of their suppliers, choosing instead to favor only one with competitive pricing. In essence, it removes competition from the equation for the OEM. Fortunately for customers, some hardware support services providers have the capability to match the pricing of even the lowest cost reseller. One such company with this ability is Source Direct.
Clients often contract with third-party maintenance companies to support and maintain some or all of the hardware, firmware, and software associated with their IT systems. However, since these IT equipment maintenance contractors are not agents of any particular OEM, they must go through suppliers, or resellers, when it becomes necessary to upgrade or replace components within the network. This puts IT maintenance budgets almost entirely in the hands of the OEM and reseller, and ties the hands of the customer and support contractor.
Although invisible to the customer, most OEMs participate in “deal registration” programs with resellers. In deal registration programs, resellers who come across a customer that needs a particular product can “register” that deal with the OEM, essentially locking the third-party maintenance contractor and customer into the reseller for that particular item. Once a reseller gets a deal registered, no other reseller can register the same deal, which gives the reseller “deal protection.”
The biggest advantage for resellers who get approved with a deal registration and get deal protection is that they will get a much better price from the manufacturer than other resellers on the exact same product quote, and once a product is registered no other agent can register the same deal. For an OEM that participates in deal registration programs, the biggest advantage is that it prevents price erosion of their products from resellers trying to undercut each other to make a sale. There is no advantage at all for the customers or third-party maintenance providers, who are probably unaware that such programs even exist, and have gone to the trouble to get competitive quotes for the best possible pricing on the components.
To the customer, obtaining quotes from OEM agents for replacement products has the appearance of competitive pricing. But in actuality, there is nothing competitive about the process at all, since only one reseller will have the ability to offer a lower price to the customer for IT equipment maintenance components; the one that has registered the deal.
Because it has spent the past 23 years building a vast sourcing network of replacement components for its customers, Source Direct, a top-tier third-party maintenance provider of IT support services, can compete with any reseller’s pricing on replacement products, whether the reseller has a deal registration agreement with the OEM or not. They are an independent provider, so they can offer clients the best solution for their needs, whether it be IBM, HP, or Sun-based, and offer a wide range of services from complete on-site hardware and software support to remote system monitoring to disaster recovery services.
Visit www.SourceDirect.com for a complete a complete listing of program offerings from Source Direct for IT systems maintenance and support or call 877.853.6947.
– See more at: http://serviceitdirect.com/blog/third-party-maintenance-provider-overcomes-anti-competitive-behavior#sthash.HNAmZX6F.dpuf
Tags: maintainance