Recently, the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) published an analytical report on the economic benefits of the Cisco Enterprise Agreement. In this article we will summarise the most valuable points to take from the report.

To read an introduction to this topic, please head to our Cisco Enterprise Agreement page.

The insights gained within the report were attained through interviews with customers that were using Cisco Enterprise Agreements. By talking to the people directly responsible for procurement and licensing within the businesses as well as the IT managers, the analysts were able to craft a well-rounded opinion of Cisco Enterprise Agreements and how they affected the companies both financially and operationally.

Cisco Enterprise Agreements come with access to the EA Workspace which is a portal to acquire licenses whenever you need them without having to purchase them through a partner or account manager. The analysts found that companies reduced their time spent monitoring licensing by an average of 70% which allows valuable resources to be shifted to a more strategic role.

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True Forward is Cisco’s way of encouraging growth within their customers. They use the True-Forward concept to avoid charging customers hefty true-up fees which many people within the industry view as an irritating penalty. Over 50% of businesses owe money for true-ups every year. Cisco Enterprise Agreements and the True-forward model now prevent this financial penalty.

Here is a link to our article on True-Forward to learn more about this concept.

With the Cisco Enterprise Agreement comes the ability to easily move Licenses between devices instead of having to purchase new licensing during refresh cycles. The analysts found that this cut costs and delays.

When talking to the customers, the analysts found that the Cisco Enterprise Agreements were not purely being used to reduce costs, but also to open doors to new technologies that the businesses had previously not been aware of. 39% of Cisco Enterprise Agreement have adopted new technologies to help them overcome business challenges. A further 50% report that they will be deploying new platforms in the near future.

The analysts stated that in every scenario the cost per license was lower with an Enterprise Agreement when compared with the traditional method of license procurement.

ESG estimates that the majority off businesses can save 25% by increasing efficiency through reducing complexity in everyday tasks. This is a reason they saw the Cisco Enterprise Agreement as such a valuable tool for organisations. Because this licensing method cuts out several main steps of normal procurement, the number of hours required to perform tasks is drastically reduced.

Some of the people that were interviewed stated that the enhanced ability to predict expenditure was just as valuable to them than the upfront financial savings. Traditional licensing methods can often be impossible to budget for and Cisco Enterprise Agreements substantially mitigate this problem.

It’s clear that the external analysts from ESG saw Cisco Enterprise Agreements as an extremely valuable tool for firms with a Cisco Estate. They stated that the benefits gained can be divided into three categories: cost-saving, reduced complexity, increased agility.

Every business should have these three goals on its list of priorities and the Cisco Enterprise Agreement can help you with this.

At Tesrex, we offer a free Cisco Licensing Review. This is a short three-phase process that takes just two weeks to complete. Phase one is an introductory call which you don’t need to do any preparation for. Phase two involves us looking at your Cisco Estate to organise the data. And phase three is the report phase where we tell you if you’re eligible for an Enterprise Agreement, how much you could save with one, and our recommendations for next steps.

If you’re interested in starting this process please click here.

To read more about our Licensing Review, please click here.

Read the full report.