Sirius’ financial solutions help a call center, retailer, healthcare system and bank remain whole.

A global call center company with more than 400,000 employees.

A longtime Sirius client needed to renew and restructure its enterprise license agreement (ELA) with a major technology provider, but their cash on hand was limited due to the 2020 pandemic. Preservation of cash was vitally important to the client and its ELA renewal was due—with an upfront $2.4-million payment for a three-year term and requirements for additional services. But declining to renew was not an option.

The client had previously been working directly with the technology provider to negotiate its ELAs. Sirius performed a license assessment to determine the client’s then-current licensing. This work provided the technology vendor with a better understanding of the features in use at the client’s remote sites and features that were purchased but not used, and led to an agreement in pricing concessions. Prior to the renewal and restructuring notice, the client’s Sirius client executive had told the client’s senior executives about the Sirius Cost Optimization offerings for cash flow assistance. When this need arose, they called Sirius for help.

Sirius worked with the technology vendor on the client’s behalf to bring the cost down from $2.4 to $2.1 million. Sirius paid the technology vendor $2.1 million upfront and tapped Sirius Financial Services to develop a payment plan of three equal annual payments with a 0% payment structure that allowed the client to move forward with the ELA while preserving cash. This allowed the client to defer two-thirds of the cost into future years, saving precious cash this year for other projects.

A sporting goods chain with 27 retail stores in 13 states.

When the pandemic hit, the Sirius client of 15 years was deep into the construction of three new stores as well as refreshes to their networking infrastructure at nine existing stores. Before COVID-19, the client was already working with Sirius to develop a solution for their network needs that included routing, switching and wireless to enhance their customer experience and improve their security posture for the new stores and the refreshes. Not knowing how their marketplace was going to be impacted by the pandemic, the client closed all stores for most of April 2020 and mandated an emergency cash-preservation strategy. Yet they still needed the equipment to complete these critical projects that were under way.

Sirius moved quickly to help the client lower their 2020 financial burden while still letting them acquire the networking equipment they needed. In reviewing the challenge, their Sirius client executive noticed that the renewal date on the client’s new equipment purchases closely aligned with their Cisco Smart Net Total Care maintenance renewals and recommended a Sirius Capital Outlay Reduction solution. Working closely with Cisco Capital, Sirius lowered the client’s 2020 spend by renegotiating their contracts and proposing a merger of four proposals into a single 36-month Cisco Capital financing agreement with a 0% interest rate on the client’s annual payments.

What started out as a precipitous drop in business and revenue due to the lockdown soon turned into a dramatic uptick in sales because of the pandemic, with people purchasing exercise and outdoor recreation equipment in record numbers. Sirius’ fast cost optimization response that creatively combined contracts and financing options helped the client weather the temporary loss of business, and the new networking infrastructure perfectly positioned them to meet the increased demand.

A not-for-profit healthcare system with 48 hospitals.

The client needed to renew their Quest Software security licenses and wanted to take advantage of an extended ELA. With $1 billion in estimated losses due to COVID-19, the healthcare system was forced to put the critical, security-related Quest ELA on hold. The client approached Sirius and their other key vendors and partners asking for an immediate 15% reduction in cost on all products and services.

Their Sirius client executive responded by providing information about Sirius’ Cost Optimization offerings—specifically those related to financing—to financial stakeholders at the hospital. The client then asked Sirius for help with the Quest ELA renewal, and asked Quest to work with Sirius on a specific payment schedule that would allow them to move forward and take advantage of the ELA.

Sirius was able to structure a solution to meet the client’s needs. The client was able to move forward with their five-year security ELA with minimal capital outlay for a $2.7-million cost spread over five annual payments, with the first payment mapped to funds available in year one due to COVID-19’s impact. Sirius Financial Services structured the project at 0% for short-term cash preservation. The first of the five payments was lower than the rest, giving the client immediate tactical savings. The cost was also lower overall, which made it desirable over the long term.

A bank with 134 locations.

The longtime Sirius client’s Rubrik technology installation was due for a maintenance renewal in the summer of 2020. They were presented with the option to pay for a three-year renewal that would not include any updated technology, or to pay much more for a technology refresh.

Understanding why the refresh was pivotal, the Sirius client executive set out to get his client of over a decade a better deal. The client executive approached both Sirius’ own financial cost optimization resources but also Rubrik’s financing—and Rubrik came up with the best deal for the client, including a three-year renewal with brand new net assets.

This was an important, strategic play for the client because it allowed them to offer a private cloud “Data Protection as a Service” model to their internal business units that was similar to what they were already doing on their primary storage environment with their Pure Storage solutions.