4 ways a Red Hat TAM maximizes IT investments, according to Forrester TEI study

Modern IT environments are complex. Development and operations teams must constantly balance resolving current infrastructure challenges with planning for scalable, future growth. This requires deep product expertise and technical skills from internal teams that are already resource-constrained. 

To bridge this gap, enterprises use Red Hat Technical Account Managers (TAMs) as an extension of their teams. A TAM is a single technical point of contact specializing in a specific product family, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift, or Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. They work alongside your team to prevent downtime, patch system vulnerabilities, and connect you directly to Red Hat engineering experts.

How does this partnership actually work in practice, and what does it mean for your business? 

Red Hat commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a 2026 Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study. Forrester interviewed enterprise decision-makers with years of hands-on TAM experience and designed a composite organization ($5 billion global company with 20,000 employees and 20 in-house Red Hat developers) to evaluate the data.

What we found was exciting: Investing in a Red Hat TAM delivered a 386% return on investment over 3 years, with a payback period of less than 6 months.

The core benefits

The study revealed significant, risk-adjusted financial benefits across 4 major pillars of enterprise operations:

• Enhanced time to market ($3.0M accelerated profit): Proactive TAM guidance shortened development cycles. As one Software Solution Architect in the IT industry noted during the interviews, “There’s no way we would be at the same level of proficiency with the product [without the TAM].” By helping the team build deep expertise directly on the job, the TAM helped launch new applications a full month faster. 
• Reduced system outage costs ($1.8M saved): Downtime introduces substantial revenue risk. A Platform Engineering Manager in financial services emphasized the critical role a TAM plays here: “In large-scale environments, the TAM is very important. Critical environments need a fast resolution, and the TAM is the way to achieve this goal.” The study quantified this, showing that TAMs reduced the duration of major unplanned outages impact time for the composite organization by 70% by Year 3 while providing log analysis and health checks to avoid minor outages entirely.
• Improved developer and IT productivity ($745k labor savings): A TAM deeply understands your unique environment, eliminating back-and-forth ticket friction. With direct TAM guidance, developers saved 40% of their time on Red Hat projects by Year 3, while annual hours spent resolving IT tickets decreased by 75%.
• Strengthened security and compliance ($196k reduced risk exposure): TAMs collaborate with internal teams on patching cadences, certificate lifecycles, and vulnerability tracking. This proactive stance directly reduced risk exposure to costly security breaches.

The strategic value

Beyond strict financial metrics, enterprise leaders highlighted long-term strategic advantages:

• Team upskilling: TAMs deliver hands-on, interactive guidance tailored to your architecture. This allows sysadmins, developers, and platform teams to build new skills directly on their own production architectures. 
• Advanced product roadmap visibility: Regular meetings provide early insight into upcoming product features. This visibility helps organizations align future technology strategies and share feedback to influence Red Hat engineering.

Optimize your investments

Whether you need to justify premium support to executive stakeholders or maximize your existing Red Hat footprint, a Red Hat TAM provides the dedicated expertise required to succeed. 

Download the complete 2026 Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study of Red Hat Technical Account Managers to explore the benefits.

Source: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Red Hat Technical Account Managers, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Red Hat, June 2026.