IBM IMS Battle Card

Integrated Multivendor Support Overview

Storage, server and networking hardware, like people, have life spans. They need to be nurtured in the early stages of its lifecycle—with updates and refinements to maintain a healthy, productive life. Once these products reach midlife, their stability increases and the need for updates decreases. As the equipment ages, its performance may not be as optimal as it once was. However, with cost-effective support, it can still perform many useful functions. Tailoring maintenance to a piece of equipment’s lifecycle, in this manner, is a practical way to help extend its life and cut costs.
However, hardware maintenance solutions from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) aren’t typically based on a lifecycle approach. In addition to commonly charging more than third-party maintenance providers, OEMs traditionally offer end-of-service-life (EOSL) dates for equipment. Once a product reaches EOSL, the OEM maintenance agreement expires and the covered product is essentially deemed replaceable by the OEM—without a careful analysis of its actual condition. The benefit for OEMs is profit: They get to sell you their latest products.
At IBM, we have developed a better answer to the universal challenge of balancing IT support costs with uptime. That answer is IBM Integrated Multivendor Support (IMS). / “The IMS market opportunity is $1.5B are you in the game?”
Our IBM support offering is designed to expand the life and ROI of your non-IBM server, storage and networking investments by:
1. Delivering around-the-clock level 1 and 2 hardware support for select multivendor storage, networking and server hardware;
2. Providing advice concerning what hardware you should keep on OEM maintenance, replace or move to IBM maintenance.
Our solution helps to simplify and reduce costs via pre-priced hardware maintenance services that are designed to be budget friendly and that require no configuration options. Plus, with a single point of contact, our solution can help you streamline vendor management and focus on core business.

What is in it for you?

  • Account Control
  • More sales and margin
  • New account acquisition
  • Land and Expand
  • Greater share of customer wallet
  • Life cycle management
  • Trusted Advisor Status

/ “Do you want account control?”

What’s in it for your customer?

  • Helps you optimize your return on investment (ROI) by enabling you to extend the life of your non-IBM server, storage and networking hardware
  • Helps simplify your technical support service strategy with a single point of contact
  • Offers a more budget friendly service to help boost uptime and reduce costs

Trigger Events

  • A client is not satisfied with current
support
  • A client has self service
  • When renewing an IBM contract ask if
they would like to add EMC or Dell to the
contract
  • The customer has post warranty EMC
and Dell installed
  • A client is planning on replacing post
warranty equipment. Why?
“Do you want a greater share of your customer’s wallet?”

Competitive Differentiators

  • IBM awarded the Services & Support Professionals Association – Hall of Fame – Lifetime Achievement for Service Excellence in 2007 and reiterated in 2012 for having been previously awarded 5 Star Awards
  • IBM is rated in the “Leader” quadrant in the Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Communications Outsourcing and Professional Services”
  • Highly skilled and trained, experienced professionals for on demand resources for virtually aby need
  • 58 support centers worldwide for rapid response
  • Well defined, time tested, disciplined processes for quality and consistent service
  • Remote alert and monitoring systems for self-help / self-heal capabilities 24x7
  • World class parts and logistics processes and tools
/ “Do you want annuities while acquiring a new customer?”

Key Questions

  • Do you have to maintain post warranty EMC, Brocade, Dell, HP?
  • Is your cost to maintain your IT equipment increasing?
  • Is your budget to maintain your IT environment shrinking?
  • Do you want to extend the life of useful post warranty equipment?
  • Do you want to optimize the investments that you have made in IT equipment?
  • Are you interested in reducing the cost to maintain your IT environment while simplifying technical support and reducing costs?

Sales Process

  • Leverage your current relationships
  • Identify post warranty installs
  • Identify a lead
  • Ask key questions
  • Engage your resources
  • Partner lead, xxx-xxx-xxxx
  • David Young, 214-20703979
  • Mike Perry, 949-872-7929
  • Offer free assessment, crawl tool
  • Price
  • Propose
  • Register contract
/ “Others are winning in the market, why aren’t you?”

Client Success Story

An installed EMC customer with EMC CX, DMX and VMAX. EMC offered to give away $1.5M in 2014 maintenance if the customer upgraded to new EMC storage. IBM IMS saved the customer >50% over the EMC maintenance offering which included support for existing EMC equipment during the transition and migration to IBM storage.
  • Single aggressive price point per serial number, not terabyte
  • No special SOW or contract
  • TIP credits to cover support cost
  • Included drive retention and unit disposal

Call to Action

  1. Leverage your current relationships to find out who in your account is a decision maker for maintenance
  2. Identify post warranty competitive installs; EMC, Dell, HP, Brocade, Foundry
  3. Pick three must win customers and team with IBM to build a win plan
  4. Pick two large competitive prospects and build a win plan with IBM.