IT Cost Optimization Increases Profitability

Why are Mid-Market Customers Switching from Big-Box Vendors?

BOOST PROFITABILITY WITH IT COST OPTIMIZATION

While the focus of many CIOs is bringing technological competitive advantages to their business, they should also consider utilizing a mix of IT and business cost optimization to increase their profitability and reduce risk while preparing for the future.

No discussion about data storage is complete without mentioning the big-box vendors: i.e. Dell EMC™, HPE® IBM® and NetApp®. IDC reports for Q1 2019 , that the top five manufacturers comprised 52.3% of the worldwide data storage market. Compare this to Q1 2011, where the top five companies combined sales made up 74.9% of the market. Big-box vendors with their one-size fits all mind-set lost roughly 25% of the storage market in just eight years. The Q1 2019 report also reveals that smaller vendors now generate almost half of the revenue in the data storage marketplace.

Why are mid-market customers switching from big-box vendors? According to Gartner , the growing number of focused niche vendors have changed the IT landscape. These focused vendors are disrupting the market by providing exceptional customer service and tech support, smart pricing, and longer warranty coverage, all of which add up to cost savings while reducing risk for the enterprise.

In this example, you receive a significant cost savings plus reduced risk. In the case of big-box vendors single SAN, a complete system failure will bring the enterprise down for days. In comparison, this risk is mitigated with the Nfina backup SAN which can be brought online in minutes in the event of a primary SAN failure or ransomware corruption. Having two SANs from Nfina versus a single SAN from the big-box vendors reduces risk and increases uptime by adding redundancy at both the system and storage levels.

Therefore, if you buy two Nfina’s SANs, 33% of your budget is freed up for other use and you get 8 copies of your data (including built in cluster-to-cluster replication) vs 2 copies of your data with no replication from the big-box vendors.

The majority of midsize enterprise organizations replace server and storage hardware when the warranty expires. Big-box vendors are forcing their customers into a standard 3-year warranty that is not in the customer’s best interest. In contrast, Nfina offers a market leading 5-year warranty which is more in line with the best interest of the enterprise.

When initiating discussions with potential customers, we are often told “we are a Dell or HPE shop”. While it keeps things simple to stick with one vendor across the board, companies pay premium prices to do so. Gartner says 2 “Smaller focussed vendors offer innovative approaches that can deliver the fit, functionality and scale needed by midsize enterprises, an alternative not usually offered by larger vendors. Moving away from big-box brands should not be a deterrent.”

Conclusions

• Focused niche vendors like Nfina have changed the IT landscape.
• Two Nfina SANs cost 33% less than a single SAN from the big-box vendors.
• Two Nfina SANs store 8 copies of your data vs 2 copies from the big-box vendors.
• Nfina’s 5-year warranty beats the standard 3-year warranty from the big-box vendors.
• With Nfina, in the event of a system failure or virus infection, system downtime is drastically reduced, thus lowering the risk of downtime to the enterprise.