Benefits of Savant Managed Smartnet Contract Services

 

Thank you for choosing Savant, Ltd. to manage your Cisco Smartnet Contracts.  Savant concentrates on your maintenance contracts so that you can concentrate on your network.  You will have the peace of mind that should something malfunction, Savant has maintained your contract and the technical support, returns process and downloads can be accomplished smoothly and quickly without any administrative burden.

Who We Are:

• Savant has been a Cisco Partner since the Cisco Partner program has been in existence.  We have been in the Cisco Smartnet Contract management business throughout our entire partnership with Cisco.  We have dedicated professionals who know and understand Smartnet, maintenance contracts and how best to apply client business objectives so that when maintenance services are needed they are in place and ready to serve.

• Savant has consistently been recognized by Cisco for outstanding service and performance of a professional Smartnet Services operation.

What We Do - A lot more than co-termination

There are lots of Cisco partners that claim to be providing Smartnet contract management, but in reality the only thing they do is make sure your equipment is on a common contract and perform co-termination at renewal time.  Savant not only does that, but a whole lot more:

• Validation, Validation, Validation.  Without validation there will be no service when the need arises to place that call to Cisco TAC for a replacement part.  Savant spends a great deal of time and effort in validating and synchronizing the equipment coverage lists of clients with the equipment lists of Cisco.  We procure the maintenance contract and ensure that your devices are correctly documented and covered.

• Continually update the Cisco Database with any moves, adds, or changes you make over the course of the contract period.  In the case that you use your contract to replace defective or malfunctioning equipment, you report the serial number changes to Savant and we take it from there.

• Track end of sale and end of support dates for future-proofing your investments and planning for continued support.

• Keep a verification database of your devices and coverage dates (separate from the Cisco data) to ensure accuracy of your inventory.

• Keep you abreast of upcoming price increases in order to budget accordingly.

• We do not simply email you a renewal quote, we work with your staff to confirm the inventory listing is correct, ensuring that you have coverage on only those items that you need covered and that the coverage is at a level that is consistent with your business goals.

• Recommend appropriate service level agreement based on device criticality.

• Co-term your contract end-dates for ease of budgeting and contract maintenance.

• Contract consolidation in the event that you purchase from multiple sources or if devices are acquired by acquisition.

• Develop finance options and track and apply promotions such as leasing and 0% interest and multi-year renewals for potential cost savings.

• Dedicated team of professionals to manage and maintain the accuracy and integrity of your Smartnet Contract.

ProActive Contract Manager (PCM)

The Proactive Contract Manager was conceived and developed to address the need to maintain a continuous synchronization between client asset data and Cisco Smartnet asset entitlement maintained by Cisco.

Why does data synchronization and validation matter?

The way in which Cisco determines entitlement for Smartnet hardware replacement is through the Cisco internal Smartnet Data Base.  If this database is not kept synchronized with the actual client asset list, including sub-modules and line-cards, and their corresponding installation locations then Cisco may:

Deny entitlement because the sub-modules or line-cards are not shown in the data base or the wrong serial numbers are shown as being installed in the chassis. This is a huge problem since Cisco now requires that sub-modules be shown in the data base as installed in the chassis which they are installed in.  This may seem trivial but it is a requirement that Cisco be kept up to date on all sub-module/line-card changes that are made if entitlement is expected.  

Deny entitlement because the client is calling in a replacement on a device that the Cisco data shows as being in another location.  Cisco may deny replacement to an "unrecorded" address because in their attempt to cut down on "gray market" and "ebay/secondary" resale they think the device has been sold and now resides somewhere else to someone who is not entitled to receive service on that device.