Cost

Public sector funding options

Create a software annual recurring revenue plan by facilitating and orchestrating an integrated funding capture strategy to maintain market share in your account

Top reasons to consider a payment plan solution

Payment plans provide significant benefits to government agencies of all sizes. Here are the top reasons why your customer should consider a flexible payment solution from Cisco Capital® for EAs.

Realize their software journey now: A payment plan allows the customer to receive the benefit of adopting EA offers now instead of over time as budgets permit. They can leverage a portion of existing budget to get the technology they need now.
Conserve budget: With a payment plan from Cisco Capital, the customer’s budget is not tied up in in one enrollment. A payment plan frees up budget for more strategic cross-architecture EA investments, or for the innovation required to support the agency’s mission.
Total ea financing: With Cisco Capital we can finance up to 100% of EA offers in addition to hardware, maintenance, and services. Subject to some limitations, we can also finance the complementary third-party portion of the total solution.
Fixed, predictable payments: A fixed monthly, quarterly, semiannual, or annual payment helps customers predict and manage cash flows across fiscal years. So as not to conflict with the Anti-Deficiency Act, payment plan solutions are structured in accordance with federal procurement policy addressing annual funding requirements and obligations.
Match payments to benefits: The customer can pay for the software as the revenue or productivity benefits derived from the software are realized, not before.
Flexibility: Structure payments to fit the customer’s budget. Cisco Capital offers a variety of traditional and customized structures to meet customer needs.
Avoid technology obsolescence: Using a payment plan gives the customer the flexibility to consolidate and align lifecycle technology with their current and future needs. A lifecycle management approach to technology acquisition, coupled with a Cisco Capital payment solution, helps ensure that the customer’s installed base is always current at an affordable, predictable cost.
Purchase and renewal options: End-of-term options include the flexibility to renew, purchase, or upgrade enrollments as the customer’s mission requires.
Deferred payments and other benefits: Payment deferral options and further financing offers and programs are available to help ensure that acquiring the technology the customer needs is as straightforward as possible.

For complete information on the benefits of financing with Cisco Capital, or to learn how your customer can take advantage of special offers and promotions, visit www.cisco.com/go/ciscocapital.

Cisco Capital financing offer for Enterprise Agreements

With Cisco Capital®, customers can take advantage of 0% to low-rate financing to plan for Enterprise Agreements, enable budget predictability, and preserve cash.

Pitch and build financing structures with Cisco Capital

Pitch

Build

What does the customer need? Have you sold them all you can?

Cisco AM and Cisco Capital® FSM meet with the CFO/
financial decision maker in person.
Is there a gap in funding?
Any grant money available?
Do they need only short-term financing?
How much of the payment can they make each year?
How long will the rollout/ramp-up take?
Have you discussed and inserted the software adoption services?
Have they financed before?

It’s all about cash flow and saving the taxpayers’ money….

Structure an EA deal around cash flow timing.
Is the structure compelling to the customer?
Price in software adoption services.
Are there other assets we can finance for them besides EA offers?
That element creates another barrier that keeps the deal further away from competitors.
Hardware purchases can be bundled on a loan or included on a lease.

FAQs

Cisco Capital objection handling

What common objections can I expect, and how can I overcome them?

"We typically purchase with CapEx funds or on-hand budget."
Decision maker	CIO, director of IT, or finance decision maker.
Response	Financing IT investments saves on the TCO and allows customers to invest savings in other competing priorities.
Qualifying questions and discussion points	Do you have more projects than what your cash allows you to accomplish? How much cash do you have on hand? Are there other projects competing for these funds? Is this project providing services to other agencies? If yes, how is that divided? Are they contributing funds? What is their lifecycle management strategy? Cisco Capital® can help plan and fund these projects within many of these constraints.
"Financing is too expensive."
Decision maker	CIO, director of IT, or finance decision maker
Response	Would you be interested if I could show you how you can save money by financing? Using a payment plan saves on the overall cost.
Qualifying questions and discussion points	What are you comparing financing to? Have you analyzed the benefits? Many of our customers originally comment that financing can incur more costs. You can use a payment plan to pay over time with 0% interest.

Why Cisco Capital?

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, Cisco Capital is in a position to leverage Cisco’s size, efficiency in managing IT assets, and excellent credit rating. This gives Cisco Capital greater access to capital and the most competitive rates for Cisco® equipment, software, and services. These advantages get passed on to your customers, allowing you to offer them the lowest financing rates, payment deferrals, and technology upgrades that no other lessor can match. They help you assist your customers to acquire
Cisco solutions in the most effective way for their business, providing:

Effective cost and benefit management: Improves the ROI/ payback period and reduce expenses

Budget stability and planning: Provides predicable costs that are fixed for the contract duration, hedging
against inflation and interest rates

Easier cash management: Conserves cash and credit lines and enables more effective management of budgets

Improved financial performance indicators: Helps the return on assets (ROA) with potential off-balance sheet finance

Cisco Capital objection handling

How does Cisco Capital benefit my customer?

Financing provides customer benefits with budgets and technology management, including:

Preservation of cash
When a customer decides to lease IT equipment and services, they
can avoid making large cash (capital) investments. By spreading the
cost over time, they can free up liquid assets for other business priorities
and investment opportunities.

Budget flexibility
The flexibility of financing allows for customized payment streams
that can leverage current and future budgets, align payments to
business cash flow, and match payments to asset usage, allowing
customers to align technology ROI with payments.

Operating vs. revenue expense
Types of financing can convert a capital expenditure to manage spikes and
gaps with costs into revenue expense. The asset is not owned by the customer (lessee) and does not appear on the customer’s balance sheet. Therefore, the asset does not depreciate on the customer’s accounting books and they are relieved of net book losses, which may result in tax benefits. In addition, due to the smaller monthly or quarterly expense, the approval cycle may be reduced when compared to that for a large capital expenditure.

Accelerated technology adoption
Financing can free customers of their budget barriers, enabling them to accelerate the implementation of IT to run their business most effectively.
With this freedom they can often accelerate IT projects that may have been planned to occur over several quarters into the current quarter, and realize
the complete technology solution they require now.

Protection against outdated technology
Customers can establish a lifecycle management strategy with financing. Financing agreements can be structured to allow customers to easily
upgrade and refresh equipment as needed. This enables customers to
keep their networks and communications up to date with the latest
equipment and services.

Cisco Capital objection handling

How do channel partners benefit from using Cisco Capital?

Widen and deepen customer relationships
Financing helps to bridge the customer’s IT needs with their financial objectives, taking you beyond the CIO and technical decision makers to the finance decision makers and CFOs. This will ultimately help you establish a more strategic relationship, increase your business value, and build CXO relationships.

Build creative deal structures
Financing provides flexible and efficient deal structures that can help you preserve discount levels and address customer buying metrics and unique agency needs, with more benefits than a cash purchase.

Grow the size of your deals
Financing gives customers the flexibility to leverage current and future budgets, allowing them to increase their spending and enabling you to sell total Cisco solutions.

Overcome “I can’t afford it”
Financing can help overcome one of your biggest objections:
"I can’t afford it.” When you quote a monthly payment early in your sales conversations, the customer can see how they can leverage current and future budgets, and can concentrate on the benefits of the equipment without the concern of yearly budget limitations. Financing can also help accelerate an IT deployment, which can help the customer realize the benefits of cost savings much sooner.