SAM Managed Services: Computacenter (Vendor Profile)

Computacenter is a £3BN IT infrastructure services business with 12,000 employees across Europe. They have developed some modular asset management services for clients struggling with too much information and not enough intelligence.

C3 Software

Computacenter offer ‘C3 Software’ on an on-going managed basis, which is powered by License Dashboard and hosted in their Manchester data centre (which meets G Cloud requirements). The SAM Managed service offering is part of the Computacenter Shared Services Factory, which is touted as an ‘operating model for industrialising IT’.

Historically Computacenter’s default inventory tool for clients is Eracent, however using License Dashboard they are also able to tap into a variety of existing onsite inventory tools to provide their SAM service.

As with other providers in this review services are broken into a number of phases depending on the situation and maturity of the client:

• License Snapshot Entitlement
• Asset Discovery
• License Reconciliation: Discovery vs. Entitlement
• License Contracts and Renewals Management

In a nutshell, you might say Computacenter are offering License Dashboard hosted and implemented against an SLA. This combines software, licensing intelligence, process horsepower and hosting.

Typical Engagements

A license manager is typically assigned to each customer installation to interpret results and add intelligence. The Computacenter SLA typically involved recognizing and identifying 95% of gaps within a 45-day time frame with monthly or six monthly reporting.

Computacenter customers can accrue service credits based on spend in other areas to apply against SAM services work, they can also offset savings generated as a result of SAM projects against future SAM work – therefore building momentum into their SAM activities.

Geared up for Growth

Computacenter admit they are only just getting started with only 9 customers and 85,000 devices being managed with C3. However they are certainly geared up for growth with a good foundation and heritage in managed services and consulting services. The goal is to develop a centre of excellence in the UK before expanding across Europe.

Existing SAM Managed service clients include some enviable large UK corporate brand names. They just have the challenge of growing from their initial foundation and convincing the small army of consultants and account reps at Computacenter of the business value.

Download the full SAM managed services report for free here.