Hardware as a Service for Hardware Resellers

With so many IT hardware resellers competing for business, it can be difficult to differentiate your organization and the value you’re able to provide to your prospects and customers. All too often, companies considering hardware make the important decision on which reseller to work with based on price. It’s understandable — enterprise hardware is a significant investment, particularly for larger organizations with greater needs and those with field service teams.

The problem is that the decision is often for purchasing hardware. While this brings significant revenue to your business, it leaves the customer with hardware that will require additional support and maintenance over the long term, which they may or may not be prepared to manage. That, and hardware depreciates like many other types of assets. Over time, the customer may be left in a tricky spot: aging hardware with increasing maintenance and repair costs that prevent them from investing in newer hardware.

At River Capital Finance, we recognized this challenge and developed a solution to help IT hardware resellers provide a more financially advantageous and operationally beneficial option to their prospects and customers. Hardware-as-a-Service, or HaaS, is a new approach to enterprise hardware that uses the proven “as-a-service” model to provide immediate value. While HaaS provides numerous benefits to end-users, it also provides key advantages to IT hardware resellers. Let’s explore a few ways HaaS can help you grow your business.

Using HaaS to Better Serve Your Customers

HaaS is the Solution Newer CIOs Have Been Looking For

Depending on your customer and prospect makeup, there’s a good chance that many of the CIOs and other technology leaders you’ve been meeting and talking with are younger. Whereas the technology leadership of 10 or more years ago may have preferred to outright purchase hardware, today’s savvier CIOs and CTOs are looking to make an impact right away. While purchasing hardware can, of course, result in such an impact, there’s the financial aspect that must be considered as well as depreciation (more on this shortly).

For example, in retail, having up-to-date Apple products and other mobile POS devices is part of their customers’ overall shopping experience. But if retailers have to purchase such hardware outright, they would likely require stores to use that hardware well beyond any recent refresh cycles. But outdated or run-down hardware doesn’t convey the advanced, efficient feeling that retailers want to provide. With HaaS, a company’s hardware program will include the latest and greatest hardware right off the bat — without the significant upfront expense.

Refresh Cycles Are Just That — Refreshing

The last thing your customers want to deal with is having a hardware program in place for only a few years and then needing to refresh it at significant expense. Depending on the program, the retailer may not have realized the ROI they were looking for (if any ROI at all). And now, only a few years in, their hardware is outdated and costing them money for maintenance and repairs. Most IT hardware resellers’ solution? Buy new hardware. That won’t sit well with the new generation of information technology leadership that’s looking for quick wins.

There’s also the employee factor as well. If a company isn’t refreshing its hardware on a consistent basis, employees are going to start experiencing more difficulty with their aging hardware. This can cause all manner of problems, ranging from reduced adoption rates to productivity issues, which can lead to a negative financial impact due to delays in lagging POS systems, employee mobile devices that need to be restarted and thus extend the checkout process (we’ve all been there), or field service hardware problems that result in lost data.

Because HaaS is a subscription-based model, your customers get entirely new hardware when their contract is up for renewal — typically after three years. At that point, they can opt to get all-new hardware without a heavy upfront cash outlay, making that younger CIO happy, keeping employees productive, and upholding the appearance they want their technology to convey.

Customer Contracts Can Be Expanded Anytime

Let’s say you’ve made a deal with a customer who has utilized HaaS for their enterprise hardware needs. They’ve implemented a mobile POS program throughout 100 retail locations consisting of Apple mobile phones and tablets. Over the first year of the program, they experience drastic increases in sales, prompting them to staff up their retail stores and subsequently find themselves in need of more mobile devices. Since they already have a master agreement in place, they’d be out of luck, right?

Not at all! With HaaS, master agreements for enterprise hardware can be easily expanded to include whatever new hardware needs your customers may require. Whatever new hardware is required is simply bundled in with the existing financed amount, and the customer’s monthly payment would increase accordingly based on the hardware and contract details. This ensures you’re able to still meet their hardware needs while increasing your revenue.

Let River Capital Finance Help You Win Your Next Deal

As an IT hardware reseller, customers need your services and products, but may not always have the resources or flexibility to actually move forward. Thanks to HaaS, the barriers to a successful deal are removed, your customer gets the hardware solution they need to achieve their goals, and your revenue grows. If you’re ready to start winning more deals, River Capital Finance is here to partner with you. Fill out the form below to get in touch with our team today!