Enhanced Maintenance Support
Enhanced Maintenance Support
Yearly Software maintenance contracts, charged anywhere between 15-25% of license price depending on the supplier, are still not well accepted in China. Customers are reluctant to pay for bug fixes ( "if your software has bugs, you should repair them for free" ) and perhaps even more reluctant to pay an ongoing fee for software that works well ( "your software is working well, we don't need maintenance" ).
In the beginning of year 2009, the Siveco China team initiated a revamp of our service offering. Based on the growing success of our maintenance assessment practice (also known as "audits" although the term is sometimes misunderstood and we have come to prefer "assessment" ), which enables our customer to identify clear, measurable, improvement opportunities, the idea of the "Enhanced Maintenance Contract" was born.
This offer packages two previously available services (annual maintenance assessments and traditional software support contracts) into one annual contract.
The objective of the contract is to provide a measurable improvement in the utilization of the system, on a year-to-year basis. This improvement is guaranteed by Siveco and measured jointly with customer at the end of the year.
It principle is simple: Siveco experts will visit customers' site at least once during the year for a system assessment. This assessment will be followed by clear recommendation and improvement proposals by Siveco, with measurable objectives to be obtained. During the following year, Siveco will remotely monitor progress and advise customers on actions to be taken. At the end of the period, another assessment will be conducted to confirm results obtained and decide actions for the next period.
The main condition is that customer should provide remote access to its system and reports to the Siveco back-office team, for the entire duration of the contract. Siveco will sign all the necessary confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. The customer obviously commits to do its best to follow Siveco recommendations.
Traditional software maintenance, which includes bug fixes, access to upgrades, the 400-hotline and end-user support, is offered to all customers under this enhanced contract.
This service package is currently charged at 25% of total license price before discount (this price may be reviewed next year) i.e. it is much cheaper than purchasing the various services separately.