Businesses across the U.S. are breaking away from traditional IT services contracts. Juggling multiple agreements presents excess costs, inefficiencies and risks which many companies are no longer willing to accept.
Instead, they are shifting towards a more consolidated, streamlined approach which provides holistic IT infrastructure management and builds long-lasting professional partnerships.
What are the factors driving the shift?
In the face of rising operating costs and increasing IT complexity, U.S. businesses are rethinking how they manage their service vendors. Relying on multiple specialized providers is no longer cost-effective, practical or likely to get the most out of your IT infrastructure. Let’s dive deeper into the factors pushing companies to switch their strategy:
Climbing IT costs
IT spending is increasing each year, with no signs of slowing down. Businesses must pay higher prices for new hardware, so any refreshes or upgrades directly affect their CapEx budget. Meanwhile, OEM maintenance costs are also on the rise.
In January 2025, CIO cited Gartner’s late 2024 survey showing that Chief Information Officers were expecting “an 8.9% cost increase, on average, for IT products and services”. Combined with continued AI investment, these price hikes “are driving a projected 9.8% increase in worldwide IT spending”.
Supply chain disruptions and shortages are pushing manufacturers to shift rising prices and delays onto their clients, from hardware to IT services and support.
Capital is a major factor driving companies to consolidate their IT services, as multiple contracts create a lack of cost visibility and can lead to overspending.
Multi-vendor data centers
As Evernex covered in depth in this article, enterprise data center infrastructures now comprise of a multitude of different hardware devices, models and brands. If businesses rely on Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for their IT maintenance and services, this heterogeneity can lead to complications.
OEMs only provide support for devices and applications under their own brand. Meanwhile, very specialized service providers tend to offer a limited range of solutions. For example, a provider which only performs data center relocations may not provide reparations or troubleshooting.
Both issues mean a business has traditionally needed multiple contracts to cover all its IT infrastructure needs. This can increase OpEx over time and risk a lack of communication between partners. A lack of overview can in turn lead to delays in support and cause blind spots, allowing issues to go unresolved.
Administrative burden
Having a different contract for each IT service not only risks excess costs but also creates unnecessary administrative complications and workloads.
Each service provider has its own terms and conditions, costs and time frames. These elements can be difficult to keep track of, especially when multiple services are required simultaneously.
Businesses are finding that using one provider for all their IT service needs is more convenient and efficient than juggling several agreements at once.
Increased need for agility
Fluctuations in business demand, technological advancements, and political uncertainty mean enterprises need to be able to adapt quickly to change.
Harvard Business Insight recognizes that in “[t]oday’s leaders are expected to operate with a heightened level of strategic foresight, anticipating industry trends and positioning their organizations to proactively address challenges before they manifest”. The same article cites the “rapid evolution of global markets, technological advancements, and shifting consumer behaviors” are driving business leaders to “adopt a nuanced approach to managing change and transformation”.
Coordinating IT services across various providers is cumbersome and can stall processes such as scaling, migrations and relocations.
This can not only cost extra capital in the short term but also expose companies to losing their competitive edge. Harvard Business Insight leaves no doubt that “[o]rganizations that fail to adapt to technological and market shifts risk obsolescence”.
How are U.S. businesses adapting to the change?
Now we understand why the traditional methods of managing IT services are no longer relevant, let’s explore how both service providers and their clients are shifting strategy.
Future-proofing
IT and business leaders must prepare their businesses for the future, ensuring their strategies and systems are agile, cost-effective, secure and compliant.
Mendix qualifies the key features of IT future-proofing as:
- Scalability
- Modular designs
- Composability
- Compatibility
- Adaptability
Scalable and adaptable IT infrastructures can react rapidly to both market changes and new technologies. Meanwhile, modular designs and composability allow components or systems to be added, removed, or upgraded individually without affecting the rest of the infrastructure. Finally, a future-proof IT system must be compatible with emerging technologies.
Future-proofing encourages an ecosystem approach to IT infrastructures in which solutions evolve together to meet changing tech and business needs.
Consolidating IT services
In the same way that businesses can lose capital and efficiency with a multi-vendor approach to IT services, an effective service provider can no longer rely on just one solution.
The cross-selling of IT services is the practice of one vendor providing multiple, complementary solutions to meet the varying needs of an enterprise. Cross-selling third-party maintenance and professional services, such as data center relocation, ITAD, cabling, wireless services and staff augmentation, can be highly beneficial for both the service provider and the client.
This approach moves beyond a single transaction to build a deeper, more integrated and holistic partnership between an enterprise and its service provider.
What are the business benefits of consolidating IT services?
Cross-selling IT professional services creates more strategic and valuable vendor-client relationships that provide advantages beyond revenue. Here are the top ways both sides benefit:
How do IT providers benefit from cross-selling?
| Benefits for the provider | How does it work? |
|---|---|
| Increased Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) | CLV is the revenue a business can expect to earn from a client during their professional relationship. By meeting the full range of a client’s needs, a provider encourages more investment over a longer period. |
| Stronger client loyalty | Providing holistic, reliable, and tailored support facilitates a strong relationship. This builds trust, reduces the risk of defection to a competitor, and encourages clients to provide positive reviews. |
| Enhanced visibility | Working with different divisions of a business offers a comprehensive view of their IT landscape, pain points, and goals. This allows the provider to position itself as an overall strategic partner rather than a niche service. |
| New opportunities | Engaging with different business units exposes a provider to a range of needs and challenges. This can lead to the discovery of new service opportunities and encourage professional evolution. |
How do clients benefit from cross-selling?
| Benefits for the client | How does it work? |
|---|---|
| Streamlined operations | Managing one contract reduces the administrative burden of juggling contracts and allows for smoother communication. This allows processes to run more efficiently, minimizing disruptions and costs. |
| Cost savings | Having one provider for all your IT needs avoids the elevated costs of maintaining several contracts. It also creates transparency, which allows your team to better keep track of its IT budget. |
| Holistic support | A provider which supports all aspects of an IT infrastructure lowers the risk of blind spots. In other words, it ensures all your needs are covered and avoids the possibility of overlooking potential issues. |
Want to consolidate your data center support?
Explore Evernex’s range of expert IT services and solutions:
What are the best ways to cross-sell IT services?
Tech UK rightly argues that “Any vendor consolidation strategy must span over not just risk mitigation, but cost, service continuity and service improvement”. This advice is targeted at potential clients but also provides an insight for vendors into where their priorities should be.
Cross-selling services, especially within a large enterprise with complex IT systems, requires a thoughtful approach. Here are some of the main strategies to get it right:
Understand your client’s business
Knowing your client is key to any business relationship. Before pitching a new service, ensure your team has a comprehensive understanding of the entire enterprise. This includes:
- Organizational structure
- The specific needs of different divisions and subsidiaries
- Individual department budgets
- Strategic business objectives
This information is crucial when making relevant and valuable recommendations.
Develop tailored solutions
Each company is unique. Therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach to IT solutions will not work, either for the provider or the client.
Customize your service offers to cover the specific needs and pain points of an enterprise. This not only helps a business to manage its costs but also instills the sense that a provider listens to, understands and values its customers.
Maintain transparency
Clear service-level agreements and honesty surrounding the abilities and limitations of your company are fundamental. Transparency builds trust and fosters long-term relationships. Overly aggressive sales techniques and exaggerations can lead to:
- Client disappointment
- Terminated contracts
- Errors and security risks
- Reputational damage
Leverage new technologies
Use data analytics to identify usage patterns, vulnerabilities, and service gaps within the client organization.
This information can help your team make proactive, tailored recommendations and present a strong business case for new services.
Offer bundled solutions
DigitalRoute defines service bundling as “the practice of combining multiple services into a single package or bundle”.
This strategy can help provide a more comprehensive and cost-effective solution for businesses which need several services.
The way forward: Preparing for the future
More and more, companies are outsourcing their IT infrastructure support and management to TPM providers like Evernex. In doing so, they are finding that consolidating their IT solutions into one service contract saves costs and time, while optimizing efficiency and fostering long-term relationships.
UNESCO confirms that “By consolidating services into one contract, organizations achieve better pricing, streamlined administration, and improved service integration”.
However, dealing with the right partner for your business is vital. Tech UK highlights that finding an expert provider “who will invest in the long-term success of the relationship is the final and crucial factor for a seamless vendor consolidation”. This means that:
- Clients should research their potential service provider to ensure the vendor’s capacities align with their needs.
- Providers must offer transparent, adaptable solutions to ensure client trust, continued revenue, and a strong reputation.
If your IT service model has become complicated and expensive, it’s time to explore cross-selling as an agile approach that balances cost, control, and compliance.
About the author:
Joseph Firetto is the Vice President of Sales for North America at Evernex, a leading global provider of third-party maintenance for data center infrastructure. In his role, he is responsible for driving the sales strategy and leading the North American sales team and expand Evernex’s market presence. With over 15 years of experience, Joe is an innovator of cross and upselling IT services. With a focus on providing competitive and cost-effective IT service solutions, he plays a key part in the company’s growth and client satisfaction across the region.
