Microsoft | Mega Vendors | Cloud Licensing

Take control of your Microsoft spend on-prem & in the cloud

Whether it’s in the form of on-premise software, Office365, Azure infrastructure or Microsoft applications hosted on third-party cloud platforms, you spend a lot of money on Microsoft. To make sure that’s money well-spent and that the organization is not exposed to unacceptable costs and risks, Livingstone’s services give you both visibility of your entire Microsoft estate AND recommendations on how to optimize spend.

Livingstone’s Microsoft services are designed to be used every day by multiple stakeholders across the organization, whether your focus is software licensing, cloud infrastructure or technology governance. Livingstone’s global team of Cloud Management experts, help you explore the opportunities and prioritize on the actions that will make the biggest impact or saving for your organization.

No matter where you are in your Microsoft journey – fully on-premises, in the cloud or managing a hybrid cloud environment – Livingstone gives you complete visibility and control of your Microsoft consumption and spend.

USEFUL CONTENT:
Access our Microsoft briefing series for valuable insights and recommendations to implement within your organization to manage your Microsoft estate.
Download our eBook: Optimizing your Microsoft True-Ups

Microsoft Managed Service

With a combination of on prem and cloud, the ability to manage and forecast efficiently and effectively is vital to ensure spend with this vendor is continually optimized. Livingstone’s Microsoft Managed Services covers on-prem, Azure and 365, providing an ongoing multi-year service offering that is tailored for each and every client.

We will monitor and assess consumption trends whilst maintaining an updated forecast of known future projects. Licensing analysis will be performed to ensure licenses are allocated appropriately and optimally. We will highlight opportunities and provide recommendations with the intention of avoiding unnecessary costs and mitigating commercial risks.

Where there is a requirement during the term of the contract for strategic sourcing advise and commercial guidance Customer will have access to the Microsoft optimization team. This will cover all new strategic purchasing including midterm negotiation, major technology purchases (e.g. E3-5), acquisition, divestment, Azure commitment changes. A commercial expert available to engage in planning, negotiating, and closing any new strategic sourcing requirements.

EA Renewals

Before embarking on any transformation project that will involve Microsoft products and solutions, or entering into commercial negotiations with Microsoft to renew your Enterprise Agreement (EA), it is absolutely critical to understand your current agreements, entitlements and usage. If you don’t, you may be at serious disadvantage during negotiations and end up with unfavourable long term commercial agreement.

The output of this service is an independent report and management briefing session, this will ensure your organization has a forward-looking Microsoft contract structure that delivers on the strategic business requirements. It will also provide to the intelligence required to deliver a negotiation strategy to achieve best value based upon a defined requirement. We help your organization build its own internal business case for Microsoft licensing, defining a bill of materials for agreement renewal based upon user categorization, future requirements and defined technology roadmap that takes into account important changes to Microsoft’s strategy.

Azure Optimizer

Azure optimizer is a proprietary solution to help customers make sense of their Azure investment whilst providing clear recommendations on areas where costs can be reduced. The Azure Optimizer makes Azure management and cost optimization simple, helping customers and users to drive real savings for their organization allowing them to reinvest into further innovation. Azure Optimizer could not be more simple to use, by providing an API Billing key and granting access to performance insights. Once the credentials are in place Azure Optimizer will collect all the required data and provide a suite of clear and concise actions that will reduce costs in Azure via a number of key optimization areas. We will provide a simple set of dashboards and reporting, highlighting areas for optimization with a clear view on how to realize the opportunity and track ongoing optimization.

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Cloud Investment Managers

Livingstone has a dedicated team of Azure Cloud Investment Managers (CIMs), focussed exclusively on helping customers drive down costs in Azure. The team are experts in the Azure Optimizer platform and can support customers in understanding the recommendations as well as integrating with team to ensure that opportunities are executed and maximized. Livingstone CIMs work directly with customer’s cloud teams to understand key priorities and objectives and ensure that deliverables are focussed towards desirable business outcomes. Once a month the CIMs will review and validate the findings for the Azure Optimizer and work with internal teams to understand the recommendations and provide clear and concise instructions on where to focus the time to ensure the most favourable commercial out comes. We offer constant access to the CIMS for any azure related questions as well as a delivery cadence to highlight all of the recommendations being provided to reduce costs. This will include involvement in Azure planning sessions, ongoing BAU optimisation processes and key Azure related projects. The CIMs are also able to provide support and guidance on contracting and commercials models for Azure consumption.
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