Companies face major challenges with their IT infrastructure. They have to innovate. On the one hand, this is because of the many people working from home; on the other hand, it’s because of the advance of new innovative applications. There is not always an immediate budget available for this. Dell Financial Services offers the flexibility to create a fund for innovation.
Decision makers and IT professionals who have been around for a while may already be familiar with this service. The business has a long history of providing financial and operational payment solutions to businesses. With these, companies can purchase equipment such as laptops, storage, servers and network switches. This is still offered today. However, in recent years, options have been added to better meet the current needs of the business world.
The emergence of the cloud has led to an increase in demand for as-a-service models. Customers no longer want to buy equipment, but want to pay per use of the equipment and infrastructure. Dell Financial Services has adapted to that trend. It now offers on-demand solutions.
Flexible payment options
With Flex on-demand, businesses can buy infrastructure for periods ranging from 12 to 60 months. The terms depend on the type of product. For example, a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) or storage solution can be purchased with a minimum duration of 12 months. Similar terms are possible for workstations and mobile devices.
Tip: Dell Technologies: The cloud is a tool, not necessarily the solution
With the introduction of these consumption models, Dell Financial Services offers more flexibility. Flexibility has increased dramatically in the data centre space. Companies can purchase their entire data centre through a Flex on Demand construction, where they can easily scale up and down. This model is sometimes referred to as the ‘cloud consumption model’.
There are also several options within Flex on Demand. This gives companies flexibility in setting up their data centre while keeping it affordable. A fully flexible contract is naturally more expensive than a longer-term commitment. Dell Financial Services offers a nice middle ground in this respect.
The ideal middle ground
This middle ground is the most attractive form for many businesses. The vendor looks at what your company needs in terms of minimum infrastructure. You then purchase this infrastructure on a long-term contract basis, like 36 months. The business pays a fixed monthly amount for the duration of the contract. The customer often receives a discount as well, because they commit themself for the longer term. Within that same contract, a variable part will be included for the so-called on-demand peak workloads, for when more server capacity is needed. It does not matter whether this concerns compute, storage or GPUs. The customer pays for these peaks based on their use and duration. The customer does not receive a discount on this usages. With sporadic use, it’s a lot cheaper than buying it in full for the entire month.
Take a large administrative office that manages the entire accounting environment in-house. It will have an average workload during the month. However, in the last week of each month and certainly in the last two weeks of a quarter, the need for processing power will increase. Administrations then need to be updated and more customers will log in and start working with them.
Another example is the extensive weekly and monthly reports in many companies. Companies are increasingly taking advantage of the data at their disposal. More and more comprehensive and intelligent weekly and monthly reports are being generated. Whereas these used to be fairly static sales figures, data from different sources is now combined to generate much better reports using artificial intelligence. The advantage of this is that problems in business processes become visible sooner. Calculating these reports often requires more computing power for a short period of time.
Flex on-demand and PC as a Service are very popular
The corona pandemic has caused companies to face challenges in their infrastructure. Often, no budget had been set aside for situations like this. Also, some companies have to keep in mind how much money they can invest directly. As a result, Flex on Demand and PC as a Service are extremely popular.
Because many people have to work from home, companies suddenly had to provide their staff with laptops. If you suddenly have to buy 100 or 200 laptops, this is a substantial investment. With PC as a Service, that investment can be spread over a more extended period. The same applies to making more virtual work environments available. If 20 percent of the staff members used to work in a remote environment and now suddenly a 100 percent does, the server capacity will need to be increased. Moreover, this has a positive impact on sustainability and the circular economy. Once part of the infrastructure is no longer needed, it can be returned to Dell Technologies for refurbishment.
With Flex on-demand and PC as a Service, the latest products are available. Whether it is laptops with the latest Intel processors or the very latest Intel Xeon processors for servers. The range is not limited to just older products.
Meeting companies with limited budgets
Quite a few campaigns to help companies were launched last year by Dell Financial Services. More of these campaigns are planned for 2021 as well. There are financial promotions, for example, in which an attractive interest rate is charged on various products. There are also deferred payment promotions, where the customer doesn’t start paying until a later moment.
Borrowing money is more expensive
You may think that all this sounds too good to be true. Borrowing money is in the end, always more expensive. At the end of the day, products do have to be paid for. However, there is a big difference between paying the full amount at once, paying in instalments and paying based on use.
For Dell Technologies, offering these options simply means that they can continue to sell products, because businesses do not have to pay a huge amount all at once. In this day and age, that is more essential than ever. The tech giant has the resources to finance this. The finance arm has a banking licence in Ireland and is under European supervision. With this banking licence, the company can offer financial constructions throughout Europe. Of course, there are limits to this. Companies do have to pass a credit check before they can enter into a contract.
Partners can also make use of Dell Financial Services
Some businesses work with Dell Technologies products through a partner. These partners can also use different financial products. For example, there are arrangements whereby the partner sells something, and then the payment goes through Dell Financial Services. This allows the partner to sell products and provide services, without suffering the financial risk of a flexible construction. There are also arrangements where the partner enters into a flexible construction with this financial arm and can then charge this to the customer. So, companies working with Dell Technologies partners can also turn to flexible models.
All in all, these financial constructions offer sufficient flexibility for companies to innovate. Businesses that do not have a large budget, can still innovate with these financing options. So, in a way, a budget is created. In the past year, Dell Technologies has helped many companies with new home offices. Especially the popular laptop series XPS and Latitude flew off the shelves.
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