There is nothing new about using Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculations for IT purchases, or is there?
Actually when it comes to looking at TCO when evaluating cloud-based solutions versus premises-based ones this is not as simple as it seems. Indeed, unlike when in our personal lives we are looking to buy or lease an automobile a lot more factors need to be considered to obtain a good TCO comparison. These considerations, when fully taken into account, could and should impact what your enterprise decides it needs to do in terms of whether the cloud or premise, or a hybrid, solution is you best path forward.
There is an old saying that where you stand is a function of where you were sitting. It is one of the reasons why there is still some significant debate regarding cloud v. premises TCO. This has been somewhat ameliorated as leading vendors have expanded their solutions portfolios to include cloud, premise and hybrid options. However, there still remains skepticism about the numbers, especially when customers are evaluating offerings from different vendors and are not just looking at several migration options from their current solutions provider.
A huge area of TCO evaluation of various options that tends to be overlooked, and certainly can weigh heavily on a final decision about what path to follow is the consideration of what is called “buyer risk.”
What does “buyer risk” mean? In part, it means exactly what it sounds like.
The car purchase is a good example, when you buy versus lease you are putting a lot more at risk if it turns out you have a lemon. In tech, because of a combination of the cloud and new X as a service (XaaS) business models and the incredible speed of innovation, it increasingly is becoming the case that buyer risk is growing as product lifecycles shrink. Indeed, obsolescence of virtually everything is becoming in some cases a matter of months and not years.
In short, the costs of keeping up if you have to do it yourself are rising, along with the complexity of doing so, and this risk to the buyer thus must become an important part of TCO analyses.
If you are in the process of considering whether to move your communications capabilities to a cloud-based solution or upgrade your premises-based capabilities, and have questions about having a meaningful TCO analysis that makes sense not only to you but your CFO and CEO, the September 30, 90 minute (11:30 AM EDT to 1:00 PM EDT) webinar, How Moving Your Contact Center to the Cloud Eliminates Risk, is something you are going to want to participate in.
Dave Michaels, Principal Analyst, TalkingPointz and Tim Passios, Interactive Intelligence vice president of solutions marketing will discuss this topic and highlight a new way of evaluating cloud TCO. Following the presentation, they will be joined by industry veteran Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates to answer live audience questions.
The reason to not just save the date but to register is that the presenters are going to address that issue of how “built-in” obsolescence can affect a premises-based purchase. They also plan to delve into the need to try and quantify such things as:
That is just the short list. The reality is there are literally dozens of other risks that will be discussed that are often ignored in the TCO evaluation.
Your mission in this context should be to have a reduced risk TCO that properly measures all of the costs and not just selective ones. The cloud increasingly is becoming a preferred place for contact center solutions functionality to reside in the future. While the business cases, especially when adding in enhanced unified communications (UC) and omnichannel ease of implementation and use, are good and becoming more compelling every day, that nagging issue for some is their own experiences that buying seems cheaper long-term than leasing. The numbers, particularly when factoring in buyer risk improve the TCO analyses substantially. Understanding how and why could be invaluable.