ShoreTel Announces TCO Guarantee Program for Unified Communications

ShoreTel backs the long-term value of its UC solutions with a low-cost guarantee.

Today's savvy business executives know that rapid adoption of new technologies is the new competitive battleground. But with IT budgets squeezed tight, unforeseen support or upgrade costs can sour the entire investment and ultimately, in some cases, put the business at risk.

That's why today's leading enterprises are spending more time than ever not just considering the return on investment of new technologies, but evaluating the total cost of ownership (TCO) from every possible angle, before making a purchase.

These organizations know that capital outlay for hardware, software—even training and maintenance costs—don't tell the whole story of a new technology's total cost. For example, up-front costs for a comprehensive unified communications (UC) solution are account for only about 25 percent of the total cost of ownership. Support services, system management, network costs, long distance charges, and electricity consumption are just some of the additional line items that must be estimated and budgeted before a purchase decision is made.

"An in-depth TCO analysis provides valuable insight into these incremental costs as well as the human factors around technology adoption, giving a more comprehensive and authoritative picture of the costs and benefits," advised Mark Arman, Vice President of Business Development at ShoreTel. "In today's economic environment, such detailed data is critical support for a purchasing decision at every level of management."

Accurately Evaluate TCO

Independent research and feedback from ShoreTel customers shows that ShoreTel UC solutions provide the lowest TCO industry-wide. Not only does a UC solution from ShoreTel provide better overall value than major competitors, but it significantly lowers the cost your existing communications infrastructure.

The reason ShoreTel can offer this lowest total cost of ownership guarantee is that we do not have the complexity of other systems, which drives up costs. By avoiding complexity found in other systems, our operating costs are lower, application adoption is higher—all factors that lead to an overall lowest TCO over several years. This has been proven in numerous customer deployments that reaffirm the findings of independent research data that is incorporated in our TCO tool.

As proof of ShoreTel's commitment to providing the lowest TCO in the industry, ShoreTel is inviting new customers to conduct a detailed TCO analysis using the ShoreTel TCO Tool to calculate and compare the TCO of alternative UC system deployments over multiple years. The TCO tool is based on independent research and serves as a valuable guide to a purchase decision.

The TCO analysis looks at multiple factors that contribute to overall solution value over the course of a 5+ year deployment, including dynamic collaboration and training, support, and network costs. Customers get to see the exact figures used for TCO calculations and are encouraged to perform their own evaluation of ShoreTel's operating cost calculations and assumptions using valid third-party data.

"The ShoreTel TCO Tool can be easily configured to represent an organization's unique telephony requirements and circumstances," Arman added. "Organizations can update or override cost assumptions at each step in the process, providing customization that captures independent research or competitive cost quotes. Unique customer data combines with recent research from independent third parties to provide an accurate and customized competitive analysis."

If the TCO tool shows that ShoreTel's TCO is higher than a competitor's TCO, ShoreTel will work with the reseller to reduce the upfront product cost below the competitors' upfront product cost.

In the world of IT, there are precious few guarantees. ShoreTel wants to make sure that your UC technology investment is among them. To find out more about the ShoreTel TCO Guarantee program and to schedule your UC cost analysis, contact a ShoreTel channel partner today.