"Show Me The Money" Tool Can Help VARs Demonstrate Potential Savings
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In light of the recent changes in Federal Government procurement policies and requirements, vendors might be interested in a new tool offered by MeriTalk. This tool can help agencies (and IT solutions providers) assess how much money they are currently saving — and could be saving in the future — based on policies of consolidation, virtualization, and cloud computing.
The calculator is the result of MeriTalk’s recent survey, “Show Me the Money: The Key to Doubling Agency Savings,” which polled 300 Federal network managers in February of 2014.
According to the study, federal agencies are making progress in a number of key IT initiatives, and yet are spending too much money in the process. The report found that by fully leveraging all five initiatives (consolidation, virtualization, cloud computing, remote access, and infrastructure diversification), managers could potentially be saving up to 24 percent of their overall IT budgets — roughly $19.7 billion a year.
“The U.S. Federal Government has the potential to drive an additional $11.2 billion in annual savings by fully leveraging consolidation, virtualization, cloud computing, remote access, and infrastructure diversification,” said Anthony Robbins, vice president Federal of Brocade, which underwrote the study. “Agencies should focus on the network to improve capacity, connections, reliability, and security, and consider moving systems and applications to the cloud to generate additional savings.”
IT solutions providers with an understanding of the shift government agencies are making toward the cloud and managed services could have an edge. As Business Solutions reported, “The U.S. federal government IT market is experiencing budget-, mission-, and technology-related changes that require vendors to immediately reassess their go-to-market strategies, and to position — or reposition — accordingly,” stated Gartner analyst Katell Thielemann in “Market Insight: Federal Government IT Market Primer,” which was released in July.
In the report, "Federal Information Technology Market, 2014-2019," also released in July, Deltek examined multiple factors — including strategic sourcing, the use of shared services, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, and open source initiatives — shaping the new federal IT environment, underscoring the need for IT solutions providers to adapt to these changes.“ Contractors must continue to adjust to this reality by ensuring that they have the strategies and tactics in place to pursue growth opportunities and protect market share,” the report advises.