Industry Problem
There are often many different IT services required to run a business from end-user support services, infrastructure and hosting costs to storage, backup and disaster recovery (to name a few!).
All of these services are priced using different metrics. User-support is often based on user numbers or resources, storage based on volume, compute based on workloads.
With so many different variables it becomes increasing challenging for businesses to forecast IT costs. And with IT being a significant proportion of their operating costs, getting the forecast right is critical.
The Uniti® Solution
Getting any forecast right is often about having the right numbers to start with. Uniti® clients have access to an online commercial portal which breaks down all of their IT costs into simple interactive monthly charts (all linked to the associated invoice). This means the past can be easily understood and the data used to inform the future.
The fundamental charging model for Uniti® is simple. Based on user numbers and storage, so businesses can add these variables into the financial forecast to model the financial impact of change within their own business.
Many businesses also use Purchase Orders (PO) to manage IT spend, creating a PO Number for all licenses in order to make an annual provision against this number, then all transactions for licenses are made against this PO. Uniti® helps do to this automatically. The relevant POs are created at the beginning of the year and invoices are then associated with the relevant PO with a dynamic report which demonstrates residual amounts.
And with the Uniti® solution, budgeting for next year also becomes infinitely simpler. There is a 12 or 24 month IT roadmap available outlining the recommended IT activities. Many of these items are fully costed which can then be used to define a realistic budget for next year.
