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Why Outsourcers Choose ITBI from SMT Data

By Jan Vilstrup, CCO at SMT Data

Outsourcers today face the challenge of balancing cost efficiency, performance optimization, and maintaining long-term client relationships. Outsourcers choose ITBI™ from SMT Data to gain a strategic advantage in navigating these complexities, optimizing mainframe capacity, managing costs effectively, and improving customer satisfaction.

Mutual Benefits in Optimization

ITBI provides unique value for both outsourcers and their clients. For outsourcers, the solution offers tools to optimize shared hardware usage across multiple customers. ITBI allows them to analyze historical capacity data to identify the best customer combinations that maximize hardware utilization. This approach not only helps minimize costs but also improves operational efficiency. Additionally, ITBI supports the exploration of different billing models to find the most advantageous options for both the outsourcer and the client.

At the same time, ITBI benefits clients by offering insights that help them optimize their capacity utilization within their billing model. Clients can reduce excess capacity usage, ensuring they get the most value for their expenditures. Even though this may result in short-term revenue reductions for outsourcers due to lower capacity requirements, it positions them better for long-term relationships by prioritizing client cost savings and operational efficiency. Read more in our whitepaper How well is your mainframe outsourcer managing your capacity.

Case Studies Demonstrating why outsourcers choose ITBI

Several real-world examples demonstrate why outsourcers choose ITBI from SMT Data to enhance cost transparency and efficiency:

A Leading Global Outsourcer: A major outsourcing provider implemented ITBI, resulting in enhanced cost transparency, operational efficiency, and new revenue streams. By replacing legacy tools used for mainframe reporting and cost management, the organization streamlined billing, reporting, and automation, leading to significant cost savings. The transition also reduced reliance on specialized personnel, addressing workforce challenges through automation and self-service capabilities. Additionally, the outsourcer successfully resold the ITBI solution to a key customer, further expanding business opportunities.

A Major Nordic Financial Institution: A large financial organization partnered with a global outsourcer to modernize its mainframe cost management and reporting. By replacing legacy, in-house-developed tools with ITBI, the organization gained deeper insights into capacity usage, software licensing, and overall mainframe costs. The implementation streamlined chargeback processes, enhanced cost transparency, and optimized resource allocation. With automation reducing manual effort, the financial institution not only achieved substantial cost savings but also positioned itself for long-term operational improvements. The success of this transformation has paved the way for similar projects across other clients managed by the outsourcer.

KMD Case: As one of Denmark’s largest IT companies, KMD replaced a homegrown mainframe management solution with ITBI, leading to more mature capacity management, cost savings, and improved service quality. The ability to correlate business activities with capacity costs allowed for fact-based decision-making, improving both internal and external stakeholder engagement. Read more in our KMD Customer Case.

Why Outsourcers and Their Clients Need Transparency

A key challenge in outsourced mainframe environments is ensuring that both parties have a shared understanding of capacity usage and costs. Transparency is essential for building trust and aligning interests. ITBI facilitates this by offering a “single source of truth” for capacity data, enabling outsourcers to provide clients with the insights needed to make informed decisions. This shared visibility allows clients to monitor their consumption against contractual terms and adjust usage patterns to minimize costs, without compromising performance. Read more on this in our whitepaper How well is your mainframe outsourcer managing your capacity.

The Role of ITBI in Different Billing Models

ITBI supports various mainframe billing models, including traditional metrics like MIPS and MSUs as well as modern approaches such as Tailored Fit Pricing (TFP). This flexibility is crucial in helping outsourcers evaluate which model best fits their business and client needs. As ITBI provides automated analysis and scenario modeling, outsourcers can quickly assess the impact of different pricing strategies on their revenue streams and client expenses.

 

Conclusion

For outsourcers aiming to optimize shared hardware utilization, reduce costs, and foster stronger client relationships, ITBI from SMT Data provides an unparalleled solution. Its ability to offer comprehensive insights into capacity usage, align cost structures, and optimize operations makes it a valuable tool in navigating the complexities of outsourced mainframe environments. By embracing transparency and optimization through ITBI, outsourcers position themselves as strategic partners for their clients, ensuring sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships.