16.6 Maintenance Firms

---

Many organizations, for one reason or another, are not willing or able to increase their involvement in maintenance and support activities, even if it qualifies them for substantial discounts. Nor can they afford to completely turn over management of their networks to a single vendor. For such firms, bargains abound among maintenance providers, and many do not base discounts on user participation via help desks. Instead, they provide whatever services customers need when the trouble call is placed.

Price and breadth of equipment coverage are the principal reasons companies opt for the services of maintenance firms. Generally, these firms are more open to negotiation on such matters as price and the types of equipment to be serviced. But this option can also entail the greatest amount of risk to uninformed users.

While cost savings and equipment coverage are important, care must be taken not to sacrifice service quality. Anything less is not only shortsighted but will end up costing more in the long run in terms of lost production due to downtime from inoperable equipment and/or unusable software. Before choosing this type of vendor, it is wise to inquire about response times, particularly for the organization’s remote locations. It is also necessary to check into how many customers the service firm supports at these locations, ascertain the staffing levels, and determine the locations of the nearest spare parts inventories. All of this information can be used to confirm vendor statements about response times.

The more types of equipment the maintenance firm supports, the better. This provides users with more flexibility in future equipment selections, since it eliminates the need to contract with other service firms. In a mixed-vendor environment, a maintenance provider who can handle everything eliminates finger-pointing among competing vendors. Before making a decision, however, it is a good idea to check the firm’s references and make inquiries about the ability of the vendor to work with prime vendors, who may be servicing mission-critical systems still under warranty.

A vendor’s capability to perform remote diagnostics will limit unnecessary downtime and save money over the life of the contract. The vendor should also have a computerized spare parts management system. After all, qualified technicians are of little value unless extensive spare parts inventories and a parts distribution network are in place to ensure fast delivery of the right parts on a moment’s notice.

If the maintenance firm can provide computer-generated reports on equipment service histories and reliability factors, by product line as well as by customer location, the information can be used to determine future equipment selections. And if the vendor’s computerized inventory and dispatch system is also used for billing, so much the better because there will be less chance of errors that tie up staff time with invoice reconciliation.

The maintenance firm should also have regional repair and refurbishment facilities, where equipment and printed circuit boards can be fixed or rebuilt. Oftentimes, this is a more economical alternative than purchasing new units. The company should also offer a warranty on items sent in for repair. A limited 90-day warranty is the norm.

Some maintenance vendors even stage new equipment and perform thorough systems-level testing before installing it on customer premises. If any problems are revealed, they can interface directly with the equipment vendor to resolve them. Meanwhile, the customer is saved from protracted dealings with a recalcitrant equipment vendor, while being spared the burden of having to deal with malfunctioning equipment.

Some companies may have doubts about the service claims of a particular maintenance firm but cannot resist the promise of big cost savings. One way to deal with this dilemma is to use the service firm on a trial basis at select sites to determine its response times and QoS. Upon demonstrating satisfactory performance, the company can gradually turn over more sites, rather than give out all of the available service business at once. The rationale of this strategy is to keep rewarding the vendor for good performance while, in the process, providing more incentive to perform. Many times such strategies will not be workable. The alternative is to stick with short-term contracts with the maintenance vendor to minimize risk until a consistent level of high performance is demonstrated.

---