4 Lesser-Known Ways a Single Vendor IT Strategy Gives You a Competitive Advantage
One of the biggest concerns for executives is choosing the right IT solution -or series of solutions -for their company. Switching providers or migrating to the cloud from in-house servers for the first time comes with a very real risk:
If you make the wrong choice, you could lose ground to your competition.
The best way to ensure that you select the right IT solution is to first choose the right IT strategy for your business.
Your selection of either a single-vendor, in-house, or multi-vendor strategy will define which provider -or providers -you choose, and will direct the course of your business -hopefully toward greater growth and success.
While multi-vendor and in-house strategies have their advantages, single-vendor is proving itself to be the strongest contender for small-to-medium businesses looking to gain a competitive edge in their industry.
Single-vendor IT is most commonly lauded for its streamlined approach, yet there are many other benefits to choosing one partner for all your IT needs that may not be as readily apparent.
Here, we’ll break down four lesser-known ways your company can gain an advantage over the competition with single-vendor IT.
If you’re not currently leveraging a single vendor for all your IT, think about how these points of performance can benefit your business. If you do currently use one vendor, ask yourself if you’ve seen these benefits play out in your company. If not, it’s possible that there are better single-vendor options available to you.
1. It Allows Employees to Be Trained Faster and More Efficiently
A single-vendor strategy ensures that your employees can get up-to-speed quickly, whether they’re new or just learning something new. Your entire infrastructure has one dedicated team to help you onboard employees, train existing staff on new apps and features, and troubleshoot any problems that arise.
2. It Provides Universal Compatibility
When you go with a single vendor for your IT needs, you end up with a suite of products that all work together efficiently on one platform.All components will essentially “talk to each other,” which makes for a smoother, less stressful work day.
You will not have to struggle with multiple logins, hassle with file and data sharing, nor will you experience a disruption in business thanks to application incompatibility. You can also rest assured that you will receive faster overall processing speeds, cross-application features, and easy integration of future software updates.
3. It Gives You a Single Point of Contact
More than 47% of companies use more than 10 vendors for their IT. That’s a lot of numbers to call if something goes wrong. With a single vendor, you have one number to call to get your answer.Questions can be answered faster than multi-vendor strategies, which often require that you submit tickets to several help desks in order to (hopefully) take care of an issue.
You will also only have to keep track of one invoice, which saves you time. It may also save you money, as you will see your monthly or annual costs with greater clarity than if you used services provided by multiple vendors.
4. It Makes Procurement of Services (Nearly) Effortless
Choosing one provider is a lot simpler than choosing one service from many providers. While multi-vendor strategies force you to search through a wide range of providers to piece together a comprehensive solution, a single vendor has already done that work for you.
Yes, there may be times when you need that second vendor for a specific application or service. However, there is often no need to waste the additional time and energy on multiple vendor selection when a single trusted vendor will provide you one solution to cover all your core business activities.
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