Staying Connected

Sophisticated buyers of ICT know that a successful competitive procurement starts by developing a robust sourcing strategy.  But how does an enterprise go about developing a sourcing strategy and what are the key ingredients?

Listen to this 14 minute podcast as TC2’s Larry York, Ben Fox, and Joe Schmidt discuss how to develop a sourcing strategy and reveal what enterprises need to do to get the best results from running a competitive procurement.

At TC2 and LB3 we spend a lot of our timing helping clients negotiate best-in-class deals for telecom, ICT, and other technology solutions.  We’ve done this for many years, so we know what best-in-class looks like.  Unfortunately, we also occasionally come across deals that are not quite best-in-class and where the enterprise has not done a very good job of managing their contract and the vendor relationship.

Listen to this 9 minute podcast as TC2’s Bryan Carriker and Joe Schmidt discuss what happens when enterprises don’t own their deal and how it impacts the business user.  

Enterprises demand many things from IT - increase capacity, build in flexibility, be responsive to future needs, ensure security and compliance -  and they want it all at a lower cost, and they want the technology available faster and more efficiently than in the past.  

To meet these demands, enterprises need to make buying IT a team effort so that key objectives and initiatives across the enterprise are addressed, there is input from and consensus building among all stakeholders, and the enterprise is positioned to more easily adapt to a persistently changing landscape.

Listen to this 6 minute podcast as TC2 Project Directors Keith Cook and Joe Schmidt discuss why buying IT is a team effort.

Listen to this 10 minute podcast where LB3's Andrew Brown explains what businesses need to know about their use of wireless signal boosters. 

In 2018, ubiquitous and reliable wireless service connectivity is a business necessity.  Yet coverage gaps and dead zones in business locations - large buildings, office campuses, even small branch offices - create frustrating interruptions, dropped calls, and poor connections.  Professionally installed distributed antenna systems offer one solution, but they are expensive and in some business locations, not very cost effective.  Small scale, off the shelf, plug and play signal boosters in theory offer a great low cost alternative, but applicable FCC rules previously limited their deployment for "personal use."  

This podcast explains recent changes to rules that eliminated this personal use restriction and opened up lawful use of these signal boosters for enterprise customers.  But the personal use restriction still applies to certain types of off the shelf signal boosters that enterprises probably find most useful. We'll explain what happened and what it means for businesses and their wireless services.

Well, they’re at it again. 

Sprint and T-Mobile have announced yet again plans to merge and create a third national wireless provider that could either provide some serious competition to AT&T and Verizon or reduce competition for wireless services in the US.  Is this time different because there’s a new administration in the White House or have previously blocked deals proven to benefit wireless subscribers?

Listen to this 10 minute podcast as LB3 Senior Partner Kevin DiLallo and Ben Fox, TC2 Managing Director, discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt the implications of the potential merger, the benefits that might be realized, such as a quicker buildout of 5G networks, and what enterprises need to do now.

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology is starting to roll out in enterprise deployments, and the savings can be impressive—if you trust it enough as a replacement for your tried-and-true MPLS.  So how can you prepare your organization to take advantage of this new technology while not putting your connectivity (and job) at risk?

Listen to this 11 minute podcast as TC2 Project Directors Tony Mangino and Joe Schmidt discuss what they covered when they presented “SD-WAN - Catch the Next Wave of Cost Savings” at Enterprise Connect 2018.  Tony and Joe also share what they discovered from the session’s panel comprised of SD-WAN experts from AT&T, Masery, Verizon, and Vonage.

Cisco Enterprise Agreements (“EAs”) are becoming an increasingly popular vehicle for purchasing and consuming software products and services from Cisco.  The general concept is that -- rather than purchasing individual software products and associated software maintenance on a unit by unit basis -- the enterprise pays Cisco an upfront fee to cover all of its purchases of a certain suite (or suites) of Cisco software products, plus the associated software maintenance, over an agreed period.

Listen to this 17 minute podcast as TC2 Managing Director Ben Fox and Marc Linsey, a Senior Partner at LB3 and President of Avenue4, discuss with TC2’s Joe Schmidt how Cisco Enterprise agreements can provide long-term benefits and savings while explaining why they must be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis to see if they make sense for your company.  

Net Neutrality is about how internet service providers (“ISPs”) located in the United States control access to their subscribers and (understandably) want rules that will let them monetize that control.  

Many enterprises think this is strictly a consumer issue, where customers of Netflix or Amazon would have a very different internet experience if Net Neutrality rules are rolled back.  But this is actually an issue for all American businesses that want to connect with their customers over the internet.  The customer’s ISP stands in their way and wants to be paid for passage.  That’s why Net Neutrality rules benefit every enterprise – the rules protect businesses from the ISPs’ plans to charge for access to their subscribers.    

Listen to this 12 minute podcast as TC2 Project Director Joe Schmidt discusses the issue of Net Neutrality and how it affects the enterprise with Colleen Boothby, one of LB3’s senior partners and a leading champion of Net Neutrality rights for enterprises.  Colleen explains why the carriers and cable companies keep fighting the fight (hint: it’s about the money) and makes a call to action for all enterprise users. 

The pricing trends in the enterprise mobility market are generally favorable for companies willing to act.  For example, cost effective plans with pooled data and unlimited voice and messaging are rapidly becoming the norm and have shifted the need for optimizing voice plans to optimizing data plans.  In addition, historically high prices for international roaming continue to drop at an even greater rate than other areas of wireless pricing.  Equipment pricing though, is flat at best, and needs careful monitoring or it could sink the corporate mobile budget.

Listen to this 7 minute podcast as TC2’s Kim Olson, Ben Fox, and Joe Schmidt discuss enterprise mobility pricing trends and what enterprises need to do to benefit.

Enterprises are increasingly evaluating Meraki products, Cisco’s cloud-managed IT solution.  Meraki products are seen as a replacement networking solution for small locations where a few Meraki devices can fulfill a range of networking functions and needs.  However, the solution requires an active subscription license, and without it, the solution becomes a “brick”.

Listen to this 8 minute podcast as TC2’s industry veterans Ben Fox and David Lee talk to Joe Schmidt about Cisco’s Meraki solution, its benefits, and what enterprises need to be aware of when buying the solution.