Company Profile

Industry:      Healthcare Insurer

Products:     Certero for Enterprise ITAM, Certero for                                    Enterprise SAM, Certero for Oracle

Estate size:   4000+

Locations:   North America

They also felt that their incumbent solution was holding them back, with their IT landscape constantly evolving to include SaaS, IBM, and Oracle, they began to feel the burden of data silos, missing functionality, and need a solution that could give them a single view of their IT estate.

IT leadership were ready to modernize and Digitally Transform the way they view and manage their IT hardware, software, and datacenter assets with a view to bringing managing their cloud and SaaS assets in the future. Unification here was key –making sure that all IT Asset Data is accessible through a single solution rather than data silos, so that knowledge can be refined from the wealth of information that full visibility and detailed inventory could provide.

The leadership was tired of working around unknowns and approximations, they needed to ensure the whole department was working from a single source of the truth. They wanted information for safer decision-making and more accurate financial planning for IT.

As an ITAM and SAM solution, they also felt that their incumbent tool was falling short on the basics, with no dedicated discovery function the tool struggled with data clarity and completeness and the sophistication required to specifically optimize datacenter licensing. They needed a solution with its own discovery capability, which could pull back normalized granular inventory for all devices whether desktop, datacenter, or cloud.

Finally, the customer had been experiencing technical difficulties, regular solution lockouts and upgrade restrictions despite it being hosted for them by the vendor. They needed a solution that was more flexible and available at all times.

The Solution

Solving Business Challenges

Certero’s unique combined offering of technology and services brings an approach to customers that is able to address business need first and foremost, and not just simply a single piece of technology to address a single challenge, such as software licensing.

By not just focusing on the solution but how the customer is going to achieve value from it –and how they can be supported to get there, Certero was able to propose, demonstrate and deliver a solution that could help the customer move forward on their ITAM and SAM journey.

That meant the customer did not have to compromise, did not have to go through another painful implementation process, and crucially—did not have to seek significant financial re-investment from the business.

This is how the customer escaped their legacy technical debt with the incumbent vendor and migrate to a new, unified ITAM platform to continue to manage growth and transformation with greater insight and confidence.

Increased Visibility

The organization wanted to be confident that it had full visibility of its assets. Certero for Enterprise ITAM gave them the ability to perform network discovery, not just inventory, so as the IT estate changes, the solution actively discovers new devices and brings them into view. Coupled with the option of agent and agentless inventory technology they have the flexibility required by the business to ensure all device types are covered.

Once this information is collected all IT asset data is consolidated into one solution whether it’s Microsoft, Oracle, Mobile or Office 365, making the ‘big picture view available for the first time. This big data can then be data-mined to make informed business decisions.

Having a future proof solution was a key requirement for the organization as they wanted a solution that could adapt with their ever-changing business needs, Certero’s ability to simply activate additional products as scope increased ensures that they can continue to have a single platform to manage ITAM, SAM, SaaS, and Cloud.

Solution Performance

Having previously struggled with data maintenance lockouts and restrictive upgrades the organization was pleased that the latest Certero solution was always ready and available through its SaaS architecture.

Certero’ Multi-Tenant Architecture (not a shared database) means they now have full flexibility and control of their Certero instance even though it’s hosted within a shared tenant. This was historically an issue with their old SAM tool, which was not able to be upgraded without the agreement of other customers sharing the same tenant. So, when new functionality becomes available they can immediately begin using it. In addition, ‘data maintenance windows’ where the solution is unavailable for a period of the day are now a distant memory, as the Certero solution is always ready and available.

Support and Delivery

Beyond the technology itself, the customer also expressed that Certero offered far better support and expertise than their previous provider. This was first demonstrated within the Proof of Concept process and continued while moving into production. From Certero Senior Project Managers providing timely updates, to the ease of coordination of next meetings and keeping to plan, to the implementation consultant’s breadth of knowledge around showcasing Certero’s capabilities to get the solution stood up, and Certero’s own licensing specialists working thru complex subject matter (such as Oracle database/middleware). The customer was vocal in praising the ‘how’ the solution was delivered as well as the ‘what’.

Ease of transition

The customer was busy and had concerns that replacing their SAM tool could be potentially as disruptive as continuing to struggle on with it. The solution offered by Certero didn’t just focus on the technology, but a fully supported transition away from the old toolset, providing the customer with a fully up and running solution as they made the transition away from their current toolset. Delivering value with the upgraded Certero solution immediately.

The transition was fluid from the Infrastructure Questionnaire completion process to solution design to the implementation itself. In a short time period, Certero has been able to get the customer installed, configured, and already driving value from the solution during the rollout process.

Commercial contracting was worked-thru amicably and came to an agreement that included Certero’s special ‘SAM swap-out offer’,an aggressive offer that Certero provided commercially to help to neutralize the cost and operational barriers for the customer as much as possible, offering a better product and more supported process to aid the transition.