Is your IT budget taking a hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic?
COVID-19 is affecting all organizations and challenging many to reevaluate their financial position. My team and I are committed to helping where we can, namely providing assistance with Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) renewals. If you are struggling to find a way to renew your Microsoft contract while reducing cost, Blue Chip can help.
As a Microsoft Direct Cloud Solution Provider, we can offer subscriptions in a flexible manner. For example, Microsoft Enterprise Agreements require annual payments but Microsoft CSP agreements do not – they support monthly and quarterly payments. So, if you need to temporarily ease financial burden around Microsoft licensing, CSP may be the right choice.
Here are three things to consider:
CSP offers monthly and quarterly payment options.
When you sign an EA, payment is due at time of renewal. In most cases, the payment is a large sum of money. And, in the current economic climate, a large renewal payment may not be financially responsible.
CSP gives you the option to make payments monthly, quarterly, or annually. This can be a more fiscally attractive way to manage licensing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.
CSP provides license flexibility.
CSP agreements give you the flexibility to reduce license counts on a monthly basis. This means that you can scale up or down as needed, and do not need to pay for licenses you aren’t using.
When you sign an EA, you commit to a number of licenses for duration of your contract. If you commit to 15,000 licenses on signing day, that is the number of licenses you must pay for each year after. That means that you are required to make payments on licenses that can no longer be used, even in the event of furloughs or a mass reduction in your workforce.
CSP commitment terms can be as short as one month.
EAs require a three-year commitment, which can seem burdensome for many of you right now. CSP agreements only require a one-month commitment. This means that CSPs can be used temporarily until an EA makes financial sense again.
In other words, if you cannot make a large annual EA payment right now, but need Microsoft technology, you could sign a CSP. You could make arrangements for monthly or quarterly payments to immediately reduce financial burden. If your financial posture changes, and you want to move to an EA, you can – it’s simple and easy to do!
If a CSP model sounds compelling to your organization during COVID-19, we can help. Not only can Blue Chip help you execute an agreement but right-size your licenses.
That’s right. If you’ve reduced your staff due to COVID-19, we can adjust your subscription so that you have more financial freedom. Together, we’ll use data to identify, report, and recommend cost savings. If you’ve increased your number of remote workers, we can adjust your subscription to include additional Teams licenses. Not to mention, provide services to help your employees fully adopt the technology so that you experience ROI.
During this time of uncertainty, our goal is to think creatively and help keep clients like you operational. This is not a time to sell, but to help! We are here to lend a hand and try to make a complicated scenario like licensing just a little easier.
Interested in evaluating a CSP agreement during COVID-19? Give me a shout at Ben.Marshall@bluechip-llc.com.
