Vendor Consolidation – Yes, It’s a Thing!

Working with multiple vendors gives you access to the most advanced collaboration technology, increasing both security and productivity. Each vendor allows you to contract partners to deploy technology and support users. But managing those various contracts can become something of a balancing act.

That’s where vendor consolidation can help. This revolutionary strategy can seem like a godsend to those who haven’t heard of it or tried it. With the right partner, it really can be as good as it sounds. Read on to find out more…

Also known as supplier consolidation, vendor consolidation is a supply management strategy that has risen in popularity over the last decade. Put simply, it’s the process of reducing the number of vendors you work with to a smaller number, or a single partner.

Technology aside, multinationals often work with multiple partners in different countries or regions. That’s because most companies don’t have the geographical reach they might need. Or if they do, they won’t have the technological reach to support all your mix of vendors.

Consistency

With different providers, comes varying levels of support – not to mention the standards they deliver. At Aura, we consistently achieve our global SLA of 99.9%. That means you can expect the same sky-high level of support, no matter the country or technology in question.

Seamless user experience

Interoperability is barely a challenge with modern technologies. What’s more difficult to implement is a seamless user experience. Ensuring that your users can quickly navigate from one system to another is key to gaining real productivity. Having a partner that can deploy and support all of your systems as one is where the true benefit lies.

Time savings

Having multiple vendors for everything is a huge waste of company time and resources. Managing various vendors and contracts can be time consuming, both for your internal IT department as well as for procurement, finance and legal departments. With fewer suppliers to handle, you’ll see less time spent setting up a supplier in internal systems, completing transactions and managing the relationship going forward.

Money savings

When companies with multiple vendors come to Aura to consolidate their estate, we often find that they’re not 100% sure about their existing estate. In short, they don’t know what exactly they have, meaning they’re usually paying for service and licenses they don’t use.

Sometimes, they’re tied to contracts in one country and cannot move some of their licenses to a different site. By vendor-consolidating, companies have an overall visibility of their infrastructure and can save huge amount on licenses, services and software they don’t use, or products that can be used elsewhere.

Reduced risk

Relying on fewer suppliers will significantly reduce risk as well. With fewer vendors to manage, your company can focus on its security strategy throughout the entire lifecycle. Support is better managed, with one number to call and one provider that’s responsible for everything. That means no confusion for your users, no finger pointing between different vendors, and no delays in the support you need.

Stronger agreements

Vendor consolidation will also give you stronger contractual agreements. With one partner to deploy, deliver and support all your communications needs, you can expect better service levels, increased quality and purchasing power.

With a truly global partner that’s vendor agnostic, deployment and support for all your systems is managed through one provider. Switching to this simpler model has a range of benefits for your organization.

At Aura, we specialize in vendor consolidation for organizations across the globe. With 2,000 technical consultants and 5,000 engineers at your service in 145 countries, we have the resources to deploy and support your systems – all wrapped up with one contact, one contract and one consistent SLA globally.

Our wide-ranging Solutions Hub includes all of the leading technologies that organizations use and – in many cases – we power the service integrators that you already buy from. Working with Aura simply means improving consistency, reducing legwork and getting the most out of your IT investment.

Contact us today to talk more about consolidating vendors for your organization.