Lenovo, KPMG sign direct device subscription deal

Lenovo has won a three-year, 7800 device deal with KPMG Australia, in which the PC vendor will deploy is device-as-a-service subscription offering to the consulting giant’s local workforce.

The subscription model combines hardware, service and finance into a single managed services contract, which Lenovo has gone direct to its ongoing client with.

Lenovo’s DaaS offering covers procurement, configuration, deployment, and asset recovery for all corporate IT devices. Security and compliance management including patching, antivirus, and ID management are also bundled.

Device-as-a-service models are gaining increasing traction, with a couple of IT-as-a-service models being rolled out for the channel this year.

Ingram Micro in June launched its offering, allowing Australian resellers to bundle hardware, software and services and sell them to customers on a single monthly bill.

Ingram’s ITaaS model is underpinned by agreements between the distributor and third-party finance providers so that customers can pay for hardware, software and services as a recurring annuity and the reseller gets paid upfront for the hardware component.

The new offering is particularly geared toward the smaller end of the customer market, Felix Wong, Ingram Micro's chief country executive for Australia and New Zealand, told CRN at the time.

In September, Synnex’s technology-as-a-service model also went live, partnering with Microsoft, Lenovo and HP, to offer hardware, software, licensing, managed services and cloud subscriptions under one monthly bill, sold through the channel.

Lenovo launched a PC-as-a-service offering in May 2016, at the time the service was directed at the channel, and available to end-customers with 200 seats or more. HP launched a similar program that same year.

Lenovo ANZ managing director Matt Codrington said the vendor was thrilled with the deal win.

“Our fully managed subscription-based service offers the commercial flexibility for KPMG Australia to flex DaaS assets up or down, without incurring a penalty or re-pricing. The utility commercial model also allows KPMG Australia to adjust the fleet size during the term, enabling them to easily adapt to changing business environment,” he said.

KPMG chief information officer Craig Wishart said the subscription offering would benefit its high-rate of staff onboarding. 

"KPMG Australia on-boards a high volume of interns on short-term contracts each year. This spikes demand for devices at certain periods, meaning they are only effectively used for nine months within their three-year life,” Wishart said.

“The new service will enable flexible use of these devices, allowing them to be “parked” and not billed, until they are required again, greatly improving the fleet utilisation to cost ratio. This allows a 'predictability' of the monthly IT spend and better alignment of cost with user productivity."