Avnet Partner Solutions' Consolidation Impact Assessment Service Helps Partners Drive IT Consolidation Engagements

Business Wire, Dec 13, 2005

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Trilogy Solutions Uses Avnet's CIA to Deliver Total Cost of Ownership Analysis for End-User Customers

Avnet Partner Solutions, Americas, a value-added distributor and provider of enterprise servers, storage, software and servers, today announced that its Consolidation Impact Analysis (CIA) has helped solution providers drive a significant increase in IT consolidation projects since its introduction a year ago. By providing a total cost of ownership analysis tool to its partners, Avnet and its partners have launched more than 90 consolidation assessments in the last year, with more than 50 percent of those resulting in new engagements for the partners. The CIA service is part of Avnet's Market Connection methodology, a complete go-to-market framework that simplifies a partner's entry into new markets.

With Avnet Partner Solutions' innovative CIA service, partners assess a customer's environment and provide a TCO analysis, significantly accelerating the sales cycle by analyzing the return on investment for all elements of the proposed solution. The data in the analysis provides the partner's end-user customer with an objective review of the benefits of IT consolidation both in financial terms and technical capabilities.

Trilogy Solutions, LLC, an Avnet partner, recently engaged with an East Coast logistics company that supplies parts to major technology manufacturers. Trilogy used Avnet's CIA tool during the sales process. The end-user company needed to know if it could continue to operate efficiently with its current IT environment of 35 older servers running various Windows-based applications. Its existing vendor recommended that it purchase new servers and consolidate, but the company sought a second opinion from Trilogy.

Before proceeding with a proposal for an HP solution, Trilogy had some questions of its own as part of the CIA. "We asked if the company could give us its current utilization numbers for CPU, memory, I/O, disks and other components," said Mark Darlington, Trilogy's chief operating officer. "They said, 'No vendor has ever asked us that question.'"

The premise for Avnet Partner Solutions' CIA service is that consolidation cannot take place without baseline analysis, helping customers answer the critical question, "What options do I have?" By detailing the impact of a consolidation from both a technical and financial perspective, the CIA report helps determine whether the replacement solution can be cost-justified. Customers often discover that it costs more to maintain an older environment than it does to replace it with the latest technology.

"The numbers provide objective information for decision-making," said Tim FitzGerald, director of marketing for Avnet Partner Solutions' HP Business Unit. "Whereas competing vendors simply provide a quote for new products, our partners use the Consolidation Impact Assessment service to provide a detailed total cost of ownership analysis. As a result, their customers understand both the technical and financial benefits upfront in their decision to use HP products for consolidating servers and storage. Our partners have found this to be an invaluable tool that helps them accelerate their sales cycle, while providing partners with new sales opportunities and a competitive advantage."

Using the CIA tool, Darlington determined that their customer would save $72,000 over three years by using a combination of 30 HP ProLiant DL380 and DL580 servers, and as a result, won the project. The customer was so pleased with Trilogy's service and initial HP server implementation that it turned to Trilogy again for a disaster recovery solution -- this time deploying identical HP rp4440 UX servers and two HP StorageWorks(TM) 4000 Enterprise Virtual Array systems at two locations.

About Avnet Partner Solutions, Americas

Avnet Partner Solutions, Americas is part of the Avnet Technology Solutions operating group of Avnet Inc. An industry-leading, value-added distributor and provider of enterprise servers, storage, software and services, Avnet Partner Solutions serves value-added resellers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Avnet Partner Solutions provides enterprise solutions from industry-leading manufacturers, focusing on driving growth for partners and manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.aps.avnet.com.

Avnet Partner Solutions, Americas, is part of the Avnet Technology Solutions operating group of Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT), which enables success from the center of the technology industry, providing cost-effective services and solutions vital to a broad base of more than 100,000 customers and 300 suppliers. The company markets, distributes and adds value to a wide variety of electronic components, enterprise computer products and embedded subsystems. Through its premier market position, Avnet brings a breadth and depth of capabilities that help its trading partners accelerate growth and realize cost efficiencies. For the fiscal year ended July 2, 2005, Avnet and the recently acquired Memec (closed July 5, 2005) generated combined revenue in excess of $13 billion in the past year through sales in 70 countries. Visit http://www.avnet.com.