PC-Ware, Microsoft large account reseller, invests millions in customer services

PC-Ware announced that it has invested close to R10 million in its service offering to improve the services to its software licensing customers.

PC-Ware named it the 'Five Pillar Value Proposition', and is going live on 15 May. The five pillars stand for: Longstanding Microsoft EMEA LAR, the customer procurement portal, a 24/7 multi-vendor helpdesk, software asset management business unit and certified and skilled licensing consultants.

Maurice Staal, Managing Director of PC-Ware South Africa, explains: "After research among Microsoft customers, as well other Vendor customers, it became clear that there was a need for additional post-sales services around software licensing. Therefore, we made the decision last year to invest in our customer services offering.

"In addition to our existing service offering, we developed a customer customised e-procurement portal, provide customised contracts for a 24/7 multi vendor helpdesk, and strengthened our software asset management business unit. We have packaged this in our 'Five Pillar Value Proposition'."

According to Staal, the e-procurement portal, the helpdesk and the SAM offering are unique to SA. The procurement portal is free to PC-Ware's customers and enables them to have a continuous overview of ongoing licensing contracts (Microsoft and other vendors) at the click of a button.

It will guarantee pricing and each product is optimised for the individual customer for every order, thereby giving customers maximum planning security. Pricing is updated every month. Besides a number of other features, such as consumption reports, it provides an approval workflow with different user rights and can be integrated with the procurement back office.

The 24/7 helpdesk is unique in that it not only provides technical support for Microsoft products, but also 14 other vendor products, such as Citrix, Suse Linux, VMware, Adobe, Symantec, etc. A real differentiator is the helpdesk employs top technical consultants and a strict and timeous follow-through on resolutions. Customers can also track this online and log calls online. All is based on agreed SLA's with the customers.

Part of the 'Five Pillar Licensing Value Proposition' is PC-Ware's software asset management in conjunction with the PC-Ware SAM Tool. This enables the customer to identify all software and installed components on the network, including laptops, effectively through a unique identification process that utilises an unequivocal recognition pattern based on a propriety DNA database.

One of the many benefits, as a result of this software identification process, is a detailed and accurate software status report. This clear view enables organisations to plan and execute deployment projects faster and more easily.

Staal says many vendors are on a compliancy drive in the market. He adds: "Through the outstanding relationship with our vendors, we will be able to liaise and negotiate with vendors on behalf of our customer.

"With this new value proposition, we have already been very successful growing our business more rapidly than expected. Customers do realise that a software licence is a commodity and that licensing post-sales services will improve their own internal licensing management and save costs at the end of the day."