Budget cuts can be tough on any organization. Smaller cuts can sometimes be absorbed without much noticeable change in day-to-day operations, but when forced to cut more than 5% of their budget – some difficult decisions have to be made. Most of our government customers have been forced to make those decisions for the last few years – and with more cuts on the way as a result of sequestration budget measures, government organizations at all levels are going to be forced to do even more with even less. At Dell, we’ve actually been able to help our government customers weather the current budget environment by using efficient IT solutions to address their most complex problems – in this case, relieving budget pressure while continuing to execute their missions.
In a recent whitepaper commissioned by Dell, IDC outlined that movement to more efficient technologies for government customers has not only resulted in more effective operation of their IT environments, but has also helped many of the early adopter agencies to realize very positive return on investment (ROI). For instance, government agencies have estimated the adoption of cloud email will save around $1 million annually for every 7,500 users. There are many opportunities for savings like this to be realized through the adoption of more efficient IT platforms with 25% of the U.S. federal IT budget, nearly $20 billion, spent on systems that could easily be migrated to new IT platforms.
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Today we announced a great example of a customer that Dell has helped to use their technology as a tool to not only operate more effectively and efficiently, but also to help them save money. Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county and the fourth most populace county in the country, migrated their Recorder’s office from EMC to Dell storage and servers to speed up the implementation of multiple programs and saving more than half a million dollars. As those at Maricopa County discovered, it’s not just about what more efficient technology will do to help carry out the tasks that technology is designed to support. It’s also about how that technology can help save money outside of the IT budget and re-allocate existing resources to focus on other ways to innovate for the citizens they serve.
Stories like this are far from unique. Other government customers have realized similar benefits. City of Thousand Oaks was able to update its IT infrastructures resulting in eightfold faster data recovery and 86% less storage management time required. Meanwhile, City of Las Vegas switched to Dell Compellent storage and PowerEdge servers to reduce the cost-per-gigabyte by 50%, refocus 50% of its staff on innovation and anticipate an overall 50% reduction in its total cost of ownership thanks to updating its data center.
In many cases, by implementing more efficient and effective IT, Dell has helped its customers in government solve problems outside of the data center. Nash County not only reduced its data center footprint by 60%, it lowered power and cooling costs by 20 to 30% when Dell updated its data center, allowing the customer to shift a quarter of its staff from reactive IT maintenance to research and development. By upgrading their data center, Gaston County was able to save nearly $1 million in its first year of operation across a number of line-items in their budget.
Our government customers have quite a challenge in front of them – with almost each one expected to quite literally do “more with less” as IT becomes an increasingly integral part of government operations and budgets continue to get slashed. At Dell, we have helped thousands of companies and organizations use information technology and business process solutions to improve performance and reduce costs, earning a reputation for excellence based on strong performance and expert council. Whether through organic development or acquisitions, we have put together a solution set that helps government customers quickly and easily transition to “3rd Platform” environments that will help them better accomplish their mission and save money. We’ve not only been ahead of this curve in helping our government customers to use IT as a tool to help them be more efficient and effective, we’ve made the commitment to expand our portfolio to ensure we’re not only able to offer our government customers and others what they need today – but also what they will need tomorrow.