Are your customers making do with inefficient IT equipment?

You may be familiar with Moore’s Law which suggests that around every two years, the speed of a computer doubles, whilst its size halves. Therefore, having the latest IT hardware can give a business a serious competitive edge. So why then, for many businesses, does IT feel like a burden, especially when it comes to upgrading their hardware?

By offering your customers options to pay over time, IT resellers can add value by helping customers run their business efficiently by making the latest technology accessible and affordable.

A buoyant IT sector

The IT market is forecast to grow by 8% in 2024¹. To give this some context, recently published information from the IDC predicts that 2024 will be a bumper year for the global IT industry, with their ‘IDC Digital Business FutureScape Predictions’ boldly stating that spend on digital technology will grow at seven times the economy in 2024². Whilst this is great news for IT sales teams, the race for market share will undoubtedly be competitive.

Power to the customer

Long gone are the days when meeting a customer’s needs was just about putting a product in their hands. Today’s customer demands to be delighted, not only by what you are supplying to them, but by the whole experience on offer, including service, aftersales and increasingly, convenience when it comes to payment flexibility.

Presenting your customer with options to pay for their equipment as early as possible in the sales process, can often make the difference between a sale going in your direction, or to a competitor. Again, citing IDC research, over 75% of UK IT buyers agree that the availability of finance impacts their choice of vendor. ³

At a glance: How customers benefit from paying for their IT equipment over time 

Benefits to the IT reseller

Aside from closing more business and hitting your targets, there are key additional benefits for IT resellers and their sales teams to enjoy. They include:

1. Adding value
Let’s use an example where a customer wants 100 laptops.

With a cash purchase, you close the sale, issue an invoice, and receive payment. Your customer has taken £200,000 out of their business and you have generated £200,000 of sales revenue. In a couple of years’ time, once the technology becomes slow and tired, the customer may choose to buy from you again.

Alternatively, with a DLL payment plan solution your customer can choose to preserve their capital and use their operating cash, paying DLL for the use of 100 laptops over a two-year period. You provide your customer with the laptops and invoice DLL. You have generated £200,000 in sales revenue and your customer pays DLL monthly repayments totalling £140,000 over two years. At the end of the two years, your customer returns to refresh their equipment.

With your customer saving £60,000 over the two years, they may choose to use this saving to either increase their laptop order or purchase additional products. These can include ‘add-on’ services, support, or essential software, all of which you can add to the agreement and invoice DLL.

2. Customer management
Finance helps you simplify your deal and frees up time.

By combining hardware, software, services, and licenses all into one agreement, you keep everything on one single arrangement. Once you have delighted your customer and created a strong connection, you remain a step ahead of the competition by knowing exactly when their financing is coming to an end. You can then be ready to help them invest their capital in upgrading to new equipment and technologies.

3. Certainty
When a customer chooses financing, you are reducing your risk if they do not settle their invoice. DLL pay your invoice, allowing you to realise 100% of your sales revenue upfront. Your customer then pays DLL over the agreed period, transferring any non-payment risk to DLL.

Get in touch

If you’ve not offered financing, it need not be complex.

A good finance partner adds value to your sales process and helps deliver solutions for you and your customers. That’s why our team of tech experts make every stage of the sales process easier, better and faster. We believe in doing the finance so that you can focus on the IT equipment.

If you would like to discover more, please contact me or a member of the team.

Sources

¹ Gartner Forecasts Worldwide IT Spending to Grow 8% in 2024
² IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Digital Business Strategies 2024 Predictions, Doc:# US50120323, October 2023.
³ IDC, Does Leasing Drive the Vendor Selection Process?, doc #US51793724, January 2024

Disclaimer

This blog has been prepared for promotional purposes only. It does not constitute an offer and is not meant as advice on how any transaction or aspect of it should be qualified from a legal, tax, accounting or other perspective. We cannot guarantee that any information provided in this blog is complete or accurate or fit for your purposes. We recommend that you seek independent advice and consider alternative payment options available in the market.