Almost every Mainstay TCO assessment has proven that Cisco’s Borderless Networks solution is more cost effective than a mixed environment, especially when the full range of IT and business variables are taken into account.

1. Solution Brief | BUSINESS CASE AND TCO ANALYSIS
Push Back Challengers and Win Deals
with a Borderless Networks TCO Study
Almost every Mainstay
TCO assessment has
proven that Cisco’s
Borderless Networks
solution is more costeffective than a mixed
environment, especially
when the full range of IT
and business variables
are taken into account.
Prove why an all-Cisco solution is less
expensive than multivendor alternatives.
When Gartner Group published its 2010
whitepaper entitled Debunking the Myth
of the Single-Vendor Network, it spurred
executives around the world to call their
IT organizations to task: Why should our
company continue to stay with an allCisco network, they asked, when it would
be cheaper to move to a multivendor
environment?
All too often, IT has had a hard time pushing back.
The problem: Cisco can appear more expensive
than the competition — at least on the surface.
However, the reality is quite different when you dig
deeper. Value-assessment studies conducted by the
consulting firm Mainstay (also known previously
as Salire) at eight U.S. and global customers
repeatedly prove that, in almost every case, Cisco
Borderless Networks are less expensive to own and
operate compared to a mixed environment.
Dealing with Multivendor
Challenges
As you would expect, Hewlett-Packard is the most
common challenger to a 100% Cisco network. HP
is famous for aggressively approaching executives
with the claim of being significantly cheaper than
Cisco. Huawei is a less frequent competitor, but
when they enter the race, they can be a formidable
low-cost opponent.
Once the competition turns up the heat— and the
possibility of losing the account becomes real—
there are a number of powerful tools that Cisco
can leverage to turn things around. One of the
most effective tools is an independent business
case and TCO analysis that arms your customer’s
IT organization with the hard evidence to prove
Cisco’s clear business advantage over any number
of competitors.
For More
Information
To learn more about
Mainstay’s TCO Analysis
offerings, contact Kent@
mainstaycompany.com
or visit www.
mainstaycompany.com.
Why a Mainstay TCO Study
Makes Sense
Here’s why Cisco account teams should consider
a Mainstay Borderless Networks TCO Study:
• Address competitive challenges. The most
common result of a Mainstay TCO study
is that the customer successfully fends off
a competitive challenge and decides to stay
with its current Cisco-only strategy. This
means the customer continues buying Cisco
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2. Mainstay’s
Methodology
products, protecting Cisco’s existing footprint
and cash flow. Mainstay’s TCO studies helps
IT departments put an end to management’s
constant requests for justification.
• Win more deals. When a big purchasing
decision needs to be made, a Mainstay study
can help account teams push the deal over
the finish line. Of the eight recent Borderless
Network studies, one helped to close a global
deal worth more than $13 million.
• Cultivate Cisco champions. In one notable
case, a Mainstay Borderless Networks TCO
Study turned a major technology outsourcer
into an enthusiastic promoter of Cisco solutions
to customers worldwide.
What Past Studies
Have Found
Almost every Mainstay TCO assessment has
proven that Cisco’s Borderless Networks solution
is more cost-effective than a mixed environment,
especially when the full range of IT and business
variables are taken into account. Here’s a selection
of what past studies discovered:
• Cisco Borderless Networks help customers
realize cost savings across multiple business
units and geographies. In contrast to
competitive multivendor networks, all-Cisco
environments produce annual operating
savings from reduced labor costs and
energy savings.
• The savings are credible and provable.
Mainstay’s studies focus particular attention
on savings areas that are easily proved and
accepted by customers. These include lower
upfront hardware costs, significant operating
savings from Cisco EnergyWise and CleanAir
technologies, and labor savings from Cisco’s
access layer Auto Configure capability.
• The specifics of a customer’s environment
can make a big difference in the results.
Cost areas that often give the edge to Cisco
include PoE+, MDF/IDF closet HVAC and
power upgrades, BYOD or VDI deployments,
power management as a service, and the
global costs of HP network skilled labor.
• HP’s lifetime warranty is not the same as
Cisco’s SMARTnet support. HP never talks
about maintenance for their switches because it
kills their claims of being cheaper than Cisco.
HP’s lifetime warranty is not equivalent to
SMARTnet, and the fact that the company sells
maintenance contracts on these switches proves it.
Getting Started
Is your customer’s IT organization losing the battle
against a skeptical executive management? Then a
Borderless Networks TCO study could be exactly
what’s needed to prove the value of staying with a
100% Cisco Network.
To learn more about Mainstay’s TCO analysis
services, contact Kent@mainstaycompany.com or
visit www.mainstaycompany.com. We can help
you get started by exploring your business needs
and qualifying specific customer opportunities.
We can even help you find funding for our studies.
To deliver a Borderless
Networks TCO analysis,
Mainstay typically works
with the customer’s IT
team, Cisco’s account
manager, and various
subject matter experts.
Our assesment
methodology is
designed to:
• Understand the
customer’s strategic
priorities and map
them to both the
quantifiable and soft
benefits of a Cisco
Borderless Networks
solution.
• Identify cost
elements that
might typically
be overlooked to
ensure the full
TCO is measured.
• Calculate the full
cost and benefits
of an upgraded
Cisco Borderless
Networks solution,
including wireless,
security, routing,
switching, bandwidth
optimization,
application
performance, and
network management
where applicable.
• Vet our assumptions
and inputs with the
customer to eliminate
any concerns over
possible bias and
win over skeptics in
procurement.
• Include both capital
and operating
costs of networking
equipment over a
multiyear period.