If your business prefers to acquire significant portions of your technology budget direct from manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Gateway, and others, you may still need a facility and staff to receive and integrate products from multiple sources into a complete solution for your project.

If you don't have the staff, facilities, or time to manage the process, look for a resource that can. Your resource should be able to meet your requirements for logistics and custom system configurations.

If the resource can perform other functions for you, they become more important. They become one of your business partners in the technology life cycle.