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The Purchasing Power of FITARA

The U.S. Federal Government is well underway to benefiting from the discounts that have been negotiated by GSA under FITARA by utilizing Esri.  USDA, DOI, DHS, EPA, National Guard Bureau, DOT, and USAF have combined their purchasing power to reach the next threshold for FITARA discounts – level 1. This translates to a savings of 2% beginning in 2017 for any and all agencies who license Esri software under FITARA for an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA).
This may mean nothing to many of you – but it is significant to the tens of thousands of clients who license Esri software in the Federal government space. What is FITARA? It is the Federal Information Technology Reform Act (FITARA) which came into effect at the beginning of 2015 to help federal government agencies optimize the cost of IT ownership through better management.  Since that time, Esri has been proud to participate and offer our customers government-wide savings based on the aggregate purchase for all Federal agencies.
The Federal agencies are also taking advantage of FITARA discounts beyond ELAs… on software and maintenance as well.

And as more customers purchase off FITARA, the savings thresholds for everyone increase. Cost savings aside, there are a number of benefits that Federal customers realize when they use the purchasing power of FITARA:
Increase buying power. Collective buying power is a good thing – especially when you are rewarded for it. FITARA can further enable departments who may have felt stuck with legacy systems because they were too expensive to consider alternatives by tapping into the buying power of the entire federal government. That’s a real cost savings, along with procurement transformation. And the more you buy, the more you save. It’s a win-win for all involved.
The KISS strategy. That’s right, you know the acronym – keep things simple,.. FITARA helps streamline and simplify software management. The advantage of this program is that it provides large-scale discounts for each agency, as stated above. All Federal agencies can tap into the savings. You may realize that savings can be applied to Esri software, but also to training and support services, and even to new products when they are released.
Better manage TCO and ROI. One of the most commonly cited challenges for digital transformation is getting a handle on the total cost of ownership (TCO) in an organization. There is a burden with legacy systems that FITARA can take away by taking on centralized licensing head-on, and everything that goes along with it: software licensing, training, support, security, data migration, and updates. Negotiating a clear picture of both non-recurring and recurring costs is how FITARA helps drive down TCO. Mitigating TCO at the start of a software selection process is key. Significant differences in ROI, can be found and many times, much more than expected, if TCO is looked at when comparing open source to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS).
FITARA is working to reduce the total cost of IT ownership for Federal agencies with better IT management throughout the government. The Federal agencies are also taking advantage of FITARA discounts beyond ELAs… on software and maintenance as well services. At the moment, the government can look forward to an average savings of around $2 million dollars per year with Esri, and that savings will only go up. Congratulations on a success FITARA partnership – we look forward to our continued growth together.

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