Insights success the 10 most valuable managed service providers nov 2017 by Insights Success Media

www.insightssuccess.com November 2017

The way of business solutions

The

10 Atul Bhave COO

IT Insights Top Queries to Ask Your IT Provider - Before You Do Business with Them

Industry Perspective Advancing Moves of Managed Service Providers

Vaco SF:

Managing, Building and Leading Outsourced EďŹ&#x20AC;orts

Editorial

rrespective of an organizations’ industry of operation, technology acts as the foundation of its services, the function it performs, and every step that it partakes.

The amalgamation of business and technology has proliferated businesses in more than one ways and has opened a door of opportunities to succeed in the evolving landscape. But businesses fail to cope up with the overwhelming technology demands of the modern tech-driven environment, making it hard to solve lagging issues in a timely manner. On top of these, network slowness and other recurring issues further bog down the shoulders of the organizations’ IT department. Not to mention, the time-consumed to ensure business operations are secure and are in accordance with governmental and regulatory compliance practices. In this environment, IT issues cannot be solved when they arise, rather it needs to be proactively managed to ensure optimal efﬁciency.

The Rise in the Adoption of Managed Service Providers

In the midst of such a situation, small and medium sized businesses are turning over to managed services to oversee and solve existing or imminent IT issues. The increasing dependency over technology has made it essential for experts to handle the regular maintenance of a company’s IT infrastructure. However, hiring a qualiﬁed full-time IT professional is unaffordable for small and medium sized businesses. Managed Services enables proﬁcient IT solutions and allows the organization to focus on its core business operations and objectives. Needless to say, when a business opts to use Managed Services, all the operations across the IT infrastructure is handled, monitored, and, most importantly, managed. The rise of Managed Services has led them to step foot into the cloud computing space, wherein organizations are now turning towards MSPs for effective guidance and support as they migrate into the cloud. The future of Managed Services will see it shift into cloud and even other verticals, but evolution is a foregone conclusion.

Sourav Mukherjee

Managed Service Providers: Complementing an Organizations’ IT Infrastructure

he need to keep pace with the evolving changes in the IT industry has increased the demands and pressure to requisite and efficient IT functionality. This has, in turn, heightened organizations’ inclination to outsource their IT activities. The increasing reliance over Managed Service Providers to fulfill IT needs is believed by many as a replacing measure of the internal IT team, rather MSPs complement the organizations’ IT infrastructure. They help eradicate any existing or imminent issues and enable the company to focus on more strategic projects. Keeping in mind the distinctive advantages and offers that MSPs brings to the table and how it effectively impacts the tech landscape, Insights Success Magazine has shortlisted “The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017,” which are curbing down time consumption and responsibility and ensuring optimal IT efficiency. Featuring as the Cover of this issue, VACO SF is Silicon Valley’s premier provider of Digital Managed Services to the top digital media companies in the world. The company helps meet business needs with its unmatched Managed Services Solutions. We have also shortlisted, Aegis Technology Partners, which specializes in a wide range of services, including tailored IT services and solutions for small and medium businesses and their owners in Norwalk; ANEXIO, which is the leading “Desktop to Data Center” infrastructure-as-a-service company; DPC Technology, which provides reliable, stress-free IT managed services ensuring their clients’ network is always up and running and eliminating those break-fix bills; Venture Pointe, whose mission is to provide its clients with a truly worry-free IT environment by delivering the highest level of service and support while ensuring continuous improvement and standardization; and VIPR, which is an award-winning and leading provider of sophisticated software solutions for the insurance market. In addition to these, don’t forget to flip through the pages of our Editorial Articles; The Best Time to Invest in Cloud Computing is Now — Cloud Tech; Should Innovation be Customer-driven? — Customer‘N’ovation; and Advancing Moves of Managed Services Providers — Industry Perspective. Also, expand your knowledge base and expertise through our CXO Standpoints; The Role of an MSP in your Cloud Strategy — Mentors’ Role; Top Queries to Ask Your IT Provider – Before You Do Business with Them — IT Insights; The Most Cost Effective Way to Build an “IT” Brand — Expert’s Insights; and Disrupt the Distruptest Technologies — Tech Talk. Happy Reading!

Cover Story

CONTENTS

Vaco SF: Managing, Building and Leading Outsourced Efforts

Articles Mentors’ Role The Role of an MSP in your Cloud Strategy

Tech Talk Disrupt the Distruptest Technologies

Industry Perspective

Advancing Moves of Managed Service Providers

Customer‘N’ovation

Should Innovation be Customer-driven?

Expert’s Insights The Most Cost Effective Way to Build an “IT” Brand

IT Insights Top Queries to Ask Your IT Provider — Before You Do Business with Them

Cloud Tech

The Best Time to Invest in Cloud Computing is Now

Aegis Technology Partners: Helping Clients Every Step of the Way to Grow their Business

ANEXIO: Trusted IT Provider for Mid-Market Customers Everywhere

DPC Technology: Helping Clients to Increase ProďŹ t and Decrease Downtime

Venture Pointe: A True Technology Partner

VIPR: Providing Solutions for the Insurance Industry

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Sourav Mukherjee Co-Editors David Smith Abhijeet Parade Kaustav Roy Piyush Rishi Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Vijaykumar Dudhbhate Art Editor Pranita Mane Business Development Manager Mike Thomas Nick Adams Marketing Manager William Business Development Executives Andy, David, Peter, Kevin, John, Brian Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

November 2017 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Vaco SF:

Managing, Building and Leading Outsourced Efforts

Jim Jhanda Managing Partner

COVER STORY Atul Bhave COO

COVER STORY

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

Located in the mecca of technological innovation, Silicon Valley, surrounded by some of the most brilliant, innovative and creative minds across the world, Vaco SF helps meet business needs with its unmatched Managed Services Solutions. The company understands the significance of being flexible and agile, and its personalized approach is the combined reason why leading Silicon Valley companies choose Vaco to manage, build and lead outsourced efforts. Simply put, Vaco offers Big 4 services at discounted prices. Consistent Actions Yielding Consistent Results Boasting a diverse internal team that strives to be at their best, Vaco consistently manages to find new ways to improve what they do and how it is to be done. It takes care of everyday business operations and projects around content support and tech, which you don’t want to deal with, enabling you to focus solely on your core business proceedings. Its Managed

“

We strive to understand the internal business process and philosophy of the customer, which allows us to deliver unique solutions based on each customer’s speciﬁc need.

“

ooner or later, every business irrespective of its shape and size are prone to face some sort of IT issue. As these problems pile up for an organization, IT ﬁrms need to expend more time and resource to tackle with the same. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) bring about the best solution for Fortune 500 companies and small to medium-sized businesses, and curbsdown any stress centered-around datasecurity or other tech issues. MSP is typically a 3rd party vendor company that offers a turnkey solution (people, process and technology) for outsourcing. Standing tall among its industry contemporaries, Vaco SF is one of the premier providers of Digital Managed Services to some of the leading digital media companies in the world.

Services Solutions has and continues to consistently meet the business needs of leading global companies. Leaders who Held on to their Vision and Translated it into Reality Jim Jhanda, The Managing Partner at Vaco, is the visionary and maverick that led the firm to what it is known as today. Under Jim’s resolute vision, unique management style and personal sales production—Vaco SF—has quickly become the elite office of Vaco. As Managing Partner, Jim shoulders the responsibility for day-to-day management of sales, recruiting, operations, client management, and the overall strategic management of the firm. Additionally, Jim has developed and managed several clients, and has been the #1 Producer for Vaco since 2013. He carries extensive experience with

Business Development and Leadership within e-Commerce and Digital Media. Atul Bhave, COO of Vaco, drives the offshore and operational excellence at the company. In addition, he is the driver behind a number of key acquisitions for Vaco SF and expansion of the largest client. Prior to Vaco, Atul worked with GE and Wells Fargo. With a work style that is engaging but not micromanaging, Atul’s past experiences include roles in Global Business Development and Strategy & Operational Leader. Gary Fenton, VP of Consulting Services, is the man who leads all of Vaco’s consulting engagements. He has over 15 years of Process Excellence and Operations Leadership up to 190 spans of control. His past experiences include working at Amazon, UPS, and Pepsico.

More than Just a Name Vaco (va – cō) in Latin means to free oneself from a master. To the customers it caters to, Vaco is more than just a name. Incepting out of the minds of three rebellious veterans of “Big 4” firms, Vaco went on to become a one of a kind managed service company. A company where the best and the brightest are free to reach their optimum potential, where freedom is not aimed for, rather preached, and where the most brilliant minds and passionate individuals would happily spend their entire work-life. Summed up perfectly by Atul, “Vaco is the go-to firm if you want to incubate a new workflow and build process around chaos.” Turning the Initial Challenge into a Stepping Stone For Vaco, the biggest challenge for them initially was to get its brand out there in the cluttered marketplace. As with any other company, making sure that it had the right programs and benefits in place to keep everyone happy, while at the same time enabling

them to perform at their best was a vivid challenge for Vaco. “We had to stand out from the rest but knew balancing business needs and employee needs was important,” Jim recalls. Vaco realized that there are things that are beyond its control, but it was imperative for the company to make sure that it builds a culture which would be successful for the company. The realization that it starts from the inside-out helped the company to create a winning recipe, one which eventually helped Vaco to stand out among the crowd.

addresses your IT project, saves money, and allows you to free yourself to focus on the core business processes, which are key to attain business success. Providing IT solutions, to ultimately help reduce the cost and delivery time of software and IT projects is what Vaco does best. With the help of its Managed Services offering, the company helps deﬁne the speciﬁc solution that best meets your needs in areas, such as Technology & IT Operations, HR Operations, Project Management, and Software Development Life Cycles. Vaco’s Managed Services include Rebadging and Knowledge transfer, SLA Management, tools automation,

Providing Solutions of Highest Value Vaco is an expert in Content Review/Curation, Localization, Support, Data Management and Machine Learning. It provides project management solutions, quality management solutions, software development and testing outsourcing to ultimately curb-down the cost and delivery time of software and IT projects. Vaco works with you to develop a customized, ﬂexible solution that

Vaco, where your goals guide our eﬀorts. We see you, we hear you, and we’re here to help.

business analytics, incubation, product launch support, instructional design, training and documentation, QA Framework, Coaching and development, stafﬁng validation, hiring and recruiting, Business reviews, and more.

company to provide managed services at price points 30% lower than its “Big 4” competition. Vaco SF comprises over 30 years of dedicated leaders with 60-plus years of combined MSP leadership experience, with an established culture dedicated to process improvement.

No Cookie Cutter Methodologies

We don’t strive simply to be good. We want to be the best that you’ve ever worked with. And the bottom line: We want you to be the best, too.

Vaco does not offer any cookie cutter methodologies – it builds customized solutions that might be different for each customer. The company works closely with clients to develop a customized and ﬂexible solution, thereby addressing their project initiatives. It provides projects that range from help desk support to software development, to strategic project management. Vaco provides project management solutions, quality management solutions, software development and testing outsourcing, to ultimately reduce the cost and delivery time of software and IT projects. Ÿ

Vaco is not a BPO Company looking to offshore all work – It operates under tight margins onsite.

Vaco is not a “hidden cost” provider – Its pricing and invoicing process is transparent.

Vaco is not competitor focused – It primarily focuses on its clients and their OKRs.

Vaco is not self-serving – It ﬂexes its muscles to changing business requirements.

Vaco is not hesitant – It listens to both its employees and clients.

Vaco is not chaotic – It moves fast but with an unyielding focus on quality.

Vaco is not unwilling – It is willing to take on any project; of any size, scope, state of maturity and any value to the client.

Rising above the Competition Vaco’s core value proposition is its unique business model, allowing the

Vaco provides highly engaged employees—weekly, monthly get-togethers, quarterly all hands meetings, peer bonuses—for full-time employees. It holds a proven track record of top-tier talent for a minimal cost. Vaco SF provides a fast-moving environment, with no bureaucracy and locally dedicated support including 100 shared delivery/stafﬁng coordinators. Additionally, the company provides on-site HR and Mental wellness support and is able to support 45 languages in the US, presently. Adopting to Changing IT Landscape with Ease “We are a thought leader. We have seasoned pros, deep local networks, and we are informed opinion leaders making us the go-to ﬁrm for Managed Service. Because we are located smack dab in Silicon Valley, the mecca of technology, we inspire and are surrounded by people who inspire innovative ideas. Staying relevant and being aware of the changing IT landscape comes naturally to us. We are workforce management experts and maintain business continuity and make real-time adjustments to overcome shrinkage and changing business needs,” asserts Jim.

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Company Name

Management

Brief

Aegis Technology Partners, LLC aegistp.com

Tim Reynolds Partner, Jay Parisi Partner & Senior Engineer

Aegis Technology Partners specializes in a wide range of services, including tailored IT services and solutions for small and medium businesses and their owners in Norwalk.

ANEXIO anexio.com

Tony Pompliano President & CEO

ANEXIO is the leading “Desktop to Data Center” infrastructure-as- a-service company.

DPC Technology dentalpc.com

Clay Archer Founder & CEO

DPC Technology provides reliable, stress-free IT managed services ensuring their clients’ network is always up and running and eliminating those break-ﬁx bills.

Carl Mazzanti eMazzanti Technoligies Inc. emazzanti.net Co-founder & President

eMazzanti Technologies provides comprehensive, scalable, cost-effective cloud, IT and network services

Genesis Network Group gng-llc.com

Mark Drizing CFO

Genesis Network Group, LLC is a leading IT consulting Firm which caters to all New Jersey Bergen Passaic county business’s and surrounding tristate area at a reasonable rate and with superior excellence.

Intivix intivix.com

Rod Schenk Co-founder

Intivix is your trusted partner for managed IT support, security, cloud services, and strategic guidance in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Marco Technologies LLC marconet.com

Jeff Gau CEO

Marco puts the power of top-notch technology expertise to work for your business. It specialize in business IT services, copier/printer solutions and managed and cloud services.

Jim Jhanda Managing Partner, Atul Bhave Vaco San Francisco, LLC COO, vaco.com Gary Fenton VP of Consulting Services

Venture Pointe, Inc. venturepointe.com

VIPR Ltd viprsolutions.com

Jim Satterwhite President & CEO, Nick Revels Co-Founder & Director of Managed Services, Joshua Lee Co-Founder & Business Technology Ofﬁcer

Vaco SF is Silicon Valley’s premier provider of Digital Managed Services to the top digital media companies in the world. Venture Pointes’ mission is to provide its clients with a truly worry-free IT environment by delivering the highest level of service and support while ensuring continuous improvement and standardization.

VIPR is an award-winning and leading provider of sophisticated software solutions for the insurance market. Driven by its clients – Richard Brown insurance companies, managing agents, MGA’s Director & Co-founder and brokers – VIPR’s products address data management requirements and regulatory burdens faced by the industry.

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

Aegis Technology Partners: Helping Clients Every Step of the Way to Grow their Business

echnology is helping organizations from every industry, irrespective of their shape and size, to achieve their business objectives. From retailers using beacons for personalize marketing communication to individual clients, to airlines using applications to streamline check-in, or hospitals using tech software to track patients and their past experiences; technology has become the campfire around which we tell our stories. But with the significant advantages of technology, it also brings-forward complex challenges. This leads to significant expenses, cantered-around the cost of recruiting and training of the workforce, the purchase of new infrastructure that ably supports emerging technologies and keeping the systems up-to-date and safe. Instead of struggling to keep pace with the advancing technologies, organizations turn to managed services for help. One such Managed Service Provider in Norwalk, CT, who specializes in a wide-range of

the responsibility for day to day operations, marketing, sales and company direction. He has been in the small business IT ﬁeld for almost 30 years, and has been an active member of several advisory boards related to the IT industry and has spoken at several public events. Jay’s primary focus revolves around developing relationships with clients and vendors that work with Aegis. A Leader in the MSP Landscape

services, including tailored IT services and solutions for both small and medium businesses, is Aegis Technology Partners. Committed in catering each of its clients with high quality service and support, Aegis helps them in every step of the way to grow their business.

With an experience portfolio of over thirty years in small business IT systems, Aegis primarily focuses on small to medium businesses that are not large enough to have full time internal IT staff. The company’s MSP model allows it to act as the “outsourced IT department” for its clients. In addition to IT support, it offers a vast variety of other services, including Ofﬁce 365, VoIP phone systems, Cloud servers, and disaster recovery.

Delivering a Perfect Fit of Solutions

Whenever the need arises for managed services in Norwalk that

Aegis boasts a unique IT team, one which is extremely friendly in approach and extremely efﬁcient in terms of productivity. The company expertly combines its services to provide its clients with customized help and support, thereby ensuring each client to get what they need and want. This approach stems through rigorous investigation of what a company needs to succeed, enabling a perfect bridge between the solution and the requirement. A Committed Individual Jay Parisi is the Partner and Senior Engineer at Aegis, who shoulders

Tim Reynolds Partner

November 2017

maintains peak operation in the IT network of your business, Aegis Technology Partners’ NetShield Managed Services is the primal choice of clients. “We’ll manage all of your IT services for a ﬂat-rate fee so you can focus your efforts on spurring your revenues to grow. Let us give you the peace of mind you deserve with your small business today with Aegis Technology Partners’ managed services” mentions Jay.

“

You can rest easy when you put your IT support needs in our hands

“

Some of the unparalleled beneﬁts of integrating NetShield Managed Services: Ÿ

As businesses of different industries and size differ from each other, Aegis offers a 100% customized package, which keeps individual business needs, size and budget in mind. Network failures have been a prevalent issue faced by organizations, which with the help of NetShield can be curbed down signiﬁcantly. Its round-the-

clock monitoring of computer and related devices and the network, keeps problems at bay before they even occur. Ÿ

One of the major areas in which NetShield Managed Services excels in is its availability, irrespective of the time or holiday.

Enabling Customers to Focus on their Business Partnering with Aegis beneﬁts clients immensely, as it enables them to invest more time and energy on their business while it handles their IT needs. This ensures productivity and happiness from the employee perspective. “We help you open the doors to more technology so you can rest easy that your network will always perform to your standards and that your company will be able to outperform its competitors with ease,” asserts Jay.

to small businesses that otherwise cannot afford internal IT staff. The biggest difference between the company and its competitors is that Aegis provides a true “all you can eat” services, wherein clients are not billed for extra projects for new server upgrades or after hour support. As with any growing business, the biggest challenge Aegis faced concerned scaling as and when new clients came on board. For them, both ﬁnding and bringing new employees up to speed has been the biggest challenge.

Rising Above the Challenges and Competition Jay Parisi Partner & Senior Engineer

November 2017

As an MSP, Aegis provides an “outsourced IT department” solution

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

ANEXIO: Trusted IT Provider for Mid-Market Customers Everywhere

triving to be the leading provider of mission critical Managed IT services, ANEXIO offers a complete “Desktop to Data Center” product portfolio to mid-market customers around the corner or around the world. The company is the preferred IT Provider for organizations seeking to optimize their information security, operational resiliency and disaster recovery footing via reliable Cloud services built on the bedrock of world-class infrastructure.

“Every day, we show up to work determined to help customers make a smooth transition from their legacy IT environments to a more efﬁcient Hybrid Cloud infrastructure,” mentions Tony Pompliano, the ANEXIO President and CEO. The company is operating in a large market and is ﬁnding success by listening to their customers and then designing custom IT solutions for each

opportunity. Wrapped around its compliance-driven IT solutions portfolio are ANEXIO’s proprietary customer support bundles with industry-leading operating procedures and US-based customer service that separates ANEXIO from the competition. Seizing the Opportunity to Translate a Vision into Reality The idea behind the inception of ANEXIO stemmed from the mind of Tony Pompliano and is a direct result of his rigorous research on how to better serve the thousands and thousands of mid-market customers. Almost ﬁve years ago, he witnessed a technology transformation occurring, wherein mid-market companies were migrating from premise-based solutions to cloud-based or data center solutions. Tony saw an opportunity to acquire several regionally-focused IT ﬁrms, and consolidate them to create scale, both in terms of the size of the company, and in terms of the size of the service portfolio. The visionary leader always had an inherent belief about himself and didn’t mind working tirelessly to attain

Bottom line, the company has the mission critical infrastructure that customers trust including: eight highly secure data centers, a super-fast IP network with speeds up to 100 gigabits per second and an IT control center that proactively monitors customer solutions. ANEXIO has established an IT platform niche, which ﬁlls the business gap between small, mom and pop shops and large, multi-national IT ﬁrms.

November 2017

A Leader with Unrivaled Industry Experience Having more than three decades of experience as an executive in the IT industry, Tony Pompliano has led the company to where it stands today. He is an expert in cloud and data center technology management, mergers and acquisitions and ramping revenue at early stage companies. Fueled by the satisfaction of his customers, Tony has a proven track record of increasing revenue faster than the industry rate, expanding EBITDA and growing market share. It should come as no surprise that under his able leadership, ANEXIO’s compounded annual growth rate over the last three years has been 972 percent!

Tony Pompliano President & CEO

November 2017

“

Your business challenges are always changing. ANEXIO’s commitment to you never will.

“

success. He exclaims, “I’ve learned how to establish and reinforce culture, hire the right people at the right time, measure everything, celebrate the wins and learn from the losses and through it all stay very focused on delivering relentless customer support.”

But the road hasn’t always been a bed of roses; speed bumps and struggles have been a constant presence. As with any enterprise, whether it be a new start-up or 100-year old company, every one of them has their own hill to climb. Tony advises early stage companies to sell what the customer wants to buy. “Invest all of your time in understanding your customer’s pain points and then quickly create solutions to help them.” Customer-Driven Success ANEXIO follows a simple route to stay ahead of its competition – stay close to the customer, understand their challenges and provide them with the products and services that they require. Another differentiator that makes the company stand out among the crowd is its dedicated workforce. The resolute professionals of ANEXIO are committed to providing managed services that customers can trust. At ANEXIO, the employees go the extra mile to leverage the company’s assets and differentiate the offerings in a way that creates value beyond what might generally be available in the market place. In today’s ever-changing world of technology, customers

appreciate the fact that ANEXIO cares enough to think about and anticipate their future needs. A Future of Continual Progress Riding high on its wave of success, ANEXIO will continue to grow through a combination of acquisitions and organic revenue. Acquisitions of regionally-focused companies will bring additional scale in terms of customer base, service offerings and technical expertise. While channel sales and direct sales will continue to increase organic revenue by selling the company’s expanding set of well-deﬁned products and services. Tony concludes by mentioning, “More wins, more acquisitions and more momentum are in ANEXIO’s future. ANEXIO is just getting warmed up. We’re only in chapter one of our customer-driven success story.”

Advancing Moves of

M anaged S ervice P roviders

t’s almost the end of the year, and hopefully you have played the right cards in the industry of MSP solutions. As we can see, the market for cloud services is escalating the digits in huge numbers. Studying the overall engagements in the industry, we can surely predict that the global market for managed services is expected to grow by almost $230 billion within 2020. The competition is stiff in the industry, only when the market is going crazily wide. In today’s time, MSPs are entering the market and coming up with new routes to attract more customers in an extraordinary pool of beneﬁts in the industry. In the coming year, we can surely assure that all those resellers will be putting on their extra efforts to learn about the latest MSP trends and initiate the smart executions within the industry. So, this is the best time to plan out your moves and be a game changer in MSP industry. Let’s have an in-depth read towards the trends that are going to take place soon in the market. Hybrid Cloud is Real and it isn’t Going Away Hybrid cloud is initiated with a ﬁle server, unadorned

except for a sticker and a logo badge. Indeed, if 2015 and 2016 where known as the years of pure cloud, then 2017 is the year of the hybrid. We see this sort of messaging around product lines all around us. For years it has been only cloud and nothing else, but as reality has started to sink in, a more balanced approach seems to be taking shape. MSPs Establishing in the Channel Partners The clients will take a keen interest in knowing all kinds of products and services only when the cloud market continues to grow, and you just can’t share the information with them. Rather than trying to stretch your limited resources, you might ﬁnd it a lot easier and more proﬁtable to join forces with a trusted cloud provider. There are few partner programs who offer free cloud support and migration services to their resellers. Think Data Security The global market for managed cloud services is growing at a high pace and we can see some unexpected enhancement on this that is stretching the market widely. A report by 451 Research has predicted that the Compound Annual Growth Rate for managed services will reach 25.6 percent by 2018. This fruitful take has opened up the window of opportunity for

November 2017

Industry Perspective

more MSPs and puts pressure on all resellers to explore new ways to drive business. Your clients need to find the data they want, when they want. If they are unaware of an access to vital email messages and file attachments at the right time, it may cost your clients a lot of money in penalties or fines. MSPs should compulsorily look for solutions that will help their clients comply with government mandates, industry regulations and corporate policies. Make a Smart Move with Monthly Recurring Revenue Can you think of a better way to do business? You increase your profits without spending more money on extra resources. A lot of MSPs have followed this route and it’s sure to become more popular in 2017. Again, all roads lead to your partners’ program. To create easy opportunities of Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) you should go for joining forces with a wellestablished cloud provider. Some resellers have reported profit increases of up to 50 percent just by switching part of their business model to include cloud services.

solutions they’ll keep coming back for more. After all, they’re looking for a trusted IT advisor who can help them deal with all their technical problems. If you lack any resource to set up and manage your own support and migration services, white label services through your CSP provider is the best way to continue your business. Customer relationship and building a rapport with them is the good news coming on your desk to control the pricing, billing, provisioning, and management. Keep an Eye on Customer Needs If you don’t offer the cutting-edge services your clients need to stay competitive, they’ll simply go somewhere else. Hence, talk to with your customers. Find out what their concerns are and which products they want! By taking the time to survey your customers’ needs, you may ﬁnd out that there is potential for other services that you haven’t even considered. Now that you’ve had a look at some of the IT service trends for 2017, it’s time to ask yourself an important question: Are you still interested in going solo, or is it time you chewed the bullet and joined forces with a trusted cloud provider?

Customer Satisfaction, Building Rapport It goes without saying, if you can offer your clients good

November 2017

Mentors’ Role

The Role of an

MSP

in your

Cloud Stratergy I

n my experience, when businesses are looking to fundamentally transform the way they work, they have to take a serious look at their cloud strategy and make sure it’s aligned to their business goals. Whether these goals are to increase operational efficiency, drive new revenue streams, improve customer service or disrupt the market, there are key principles I advise businesses to follow. The approach you take will depend on what stage your business is at. A cloud first strategy is appropriate if you have the flexibility to move your core business applications to the cloud because you’re a new business or you’re not encumbered by legacy infrastructure. A hybrid approach works if you have a clear plan on which applications you feel comfortable moving to the cloud, versus those you’d prefer to keep within your own private network or at a data centre.

Firstly, upskilling your internal IT team to manage the migration can be a real challenge when the skills required are fundamentally different to those of a traditional IT team. Furthermore, it can be risky to divert your team away from managing business critical IT infrastructure to plan and implement a cloud migration strategy. This can be a very signiﬁcant undertaking, and one that often makes sense to outsource to an MSP with the specialist skills you don’t have in-house. Many businesses will need to redesign their legacy networks and infrastructure to support this migration, which can be complex. For example, data that was previously routed via a private network to head ofﬁce, may now be serviced via the internet, which creates a big shift in data and networking requirements.

If you’re at an early stage in your cloud strategy and are still getting to grips with the options available, it can help to work with a managed service provider who will map out the most appropriate migration path based on what you’re trying to achieve.

Another big decision is which technology provider to go with. With so many options available it can be challenging to decide which one is right for your business. For example, do you go with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or a mix of the two? It’s easy to get distracted by service features, so it’s important to keep focused on the business outcomes you’re trying to achieve when going through the vendor selection process.

Irrespective of what stage you’re at, there are challenges that most businesses face as they journey to the cloud.

With all the beneﬁts that the cloud offers in terms of cost savings, agility and innovation, it can also expose your business to increased security threats.

Working with a Managed Service Provider with strong credentials in security can help you to lock down any potential vulnerabilities in your network. If you decide that working with a Managed Service Provider is right for your business, look for a partner with demonstrable expertise in architecting, implementing and managing cloud-based network infrastructures and applications that can ﬂex with your business. They should also offer a security portfolio that supports both public internet and private networking environments. Many IT decision makers come unstuck when they select service providers who don’t invest enough in cutting-edge technology. Even though IT services are often viewed as a commodity, working with a partner who can predict where the market is going can really help to transform your business. There’s nothing worse than investing time and money in technology that becomes obsolete. Work with someone who has a strong reputation in delivering market leading technology in data centres, data security and cloud based services. The right MSP will be much more than a supplier. They’ll be an extension to your IT team; a true partner who’s committed to delivering outcomes and is happy to share the risk of the November 2017

About The Author As the CEO of Enablis Pty Ltd, Jon leads a passionate and focused team delivering Managed IT Communication and Cloud Services to mid-sized organizations in Australia and New Zealand. A 25-year industry ICT veteran, in 2006 Jon founded the Australian business for Sirocom Ltd, a leading UK Managed Virtual network operator (MVNO) that later became Azzurri Communications Pty Ltd. Eleven years on, John has grown Enablis, the Australian division of Azzurri Communications, from one employee to over 50 employees with oﬃces in Sydney and Melbourne. His zeal and vision to deliver smarter ways for organizations to procure and operate complex communication estates coupled with his experience in leading and driving a strong business culture focused on doing “right by the customer” have resulted in Enablis winning multiple industry awards for growth and service quality every year for the past six years. Prior to Enablis, Jon held Senior Partner roles at major carriers such as Verizon and Optus where he helped develop and grow key integrator relationships in Europe, and later on, in Australia. Before that, he worked at Cabletron and 3Com. Jon has sat on and assisted in technology steering panels at St Vincent de Paul. He has a passion for helping and getting involved in raising awareness and donations for a number of charities focused on homelessness and under privileged youth. technology deployment. Much like any relationship, a good partnership is based on chemistry, transparency, shared goals and mutual respect. Most importantly, you need to be certain they’ve got your back.

November 2017

Jon Evans CEO Working with an MSP who speaks your language is vital. This means that they should know your industry and ideally, already have customers in your sector. Even though every business is unique, there’s a lot to be said for working with service providers who understand your business objectives and the risk proﬁle you’re trying to manage. In my experience, IT budgets are generally ﬂat or falling, whereas demand for high priority strategic projects such as migrating to the cloud, is only increasing. This means that IT decision makers are often under increasing pressure to achieve more with less. Work with an MSP who can help you deploy your budget and resources more effectively; who can build a business case for you and back it up with hard numbers. Ultimately, they need to convince you and the rest of the business that a cloud strategy is going to deliver measurable improvements to your business before you bring them on board.

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

DPC Technology: Helping Clients to Increase Proﬁt and Decrease Downtime

or more than twenty years, DPC Technology has been providing computer support, outsourced IT, and network implementation solutions to businesses throughout southeastern United States. DPC Technology’s management team holds a combined experience of over 100 years in the field and has extensive knowledge when it comes to helping companies find the right fit from an IT perspective.

weaknesses and putting a plan in place to maximize their technology budget, while ensuring clients have all facets of their network optimized and secure. Thanks to DPC Technology’s comprehensive Complete Cloud solution, clients can now easily access to their data anytime, from anywhere. Accessible from any device, Complete Cloud computing integrates seamlessly with a client’s existing I.T. infrastructure creating a single

database available to multiple office locations. A Leader in the IT Industry Clay Archer is the Founder, and CEO of DPC Technology. He graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and received a Master in Business Administration from the University of North Florida College of Business. Clay is a member of the Dental Integrators Association (DIA), which is a network of leading independent dental technology integration firms from across the country. It was formed to create and deliver a higher standard of quality and care for dental practice technology integration. Although a large portion of DPC Technology’s charitable donations is given to the Florida Mission of Mercy Foundation through financial donations with its computers, machines and workstations, the DPC team also volunteers their time. DPC plays a vital role as the presenting benefactor for The Florida Mission of Mercy (FLA-

The integrated solutions at DPC Technology ensure their clients are provided with the latest technology for their ofﬁces. DPC Technology’s “Complete” offerings include much more than IT Support. With Cloud Computing, Encrypted Email, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Hardware and Products, VoIP Phone Systems and more, client gets one comprehensive solution all under one roof. The team at DPC Technology take a proactive approach to their clients IT network, identifying strengths and

November 2017

Helping Clients to Grow DPC Technology takes pride in creating long lasting relationships with their clients and making sure their clients are satisﬁed with their service. That’s because the team at DPC Technology want their clients to think of the them as their long-term business partner. Focusing on client’s growth, productivity and optimizing their inefﬁciencies. “Thank you all so much for ALL of your help. When a system goes down in veterinary medicine, the hospital is usually down 6-8 hours. You guys got everything operational within 2 hours. In 14 years of veterinary medicine, I

Clay Archer Founder & CEO

November 2017

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Making Computers Work for Businesses Since 1995

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MOM), a two-day clinic which provides free dental care to the underserved and uninsured in Florida – those that would otherwise go without dental care. The Florida Mission of Mercy (is a ﬁrst-come, ﬁrst-serve event with a goal of treating 2,000 patients in two days).

have never seen such a quick response and permanent fix to an IT problem.” - Dr. Howard Bouchelle III, Intracoastal West Veterinary Hospital. “DPC has been an instrumental component of my dental practice’s success. They have been with me since the first day I opened my doors and, 13 years later, I can’t imagine working with any other team. Their knowledge of the dental industry keeps me in compliance with the ever-changing laws. Their vast understanding of how dental offices run helps me to sleep at night… knowing that I have an entire team of experts on my side to ensure not only my patients’ privacy, but the future of my practice. It is without hesitation that I would recommend DPC to any dental practice.” - Traci Lewis, Office Manager/Sleep Coordinator, Bartram Dental Center. “DPC helped to make a smooth transition from paper charts to electronic records after I bought my practice. They installed the best equipment and secured my network. I can sleep soundly knowing my records are easily accessible from the cloud in case of emergency. The Complete Care

Program settles technical issues swiftly allowing minimal office interruptions. You cannot put a price on that!” - Dr. Ross Fishman, Fishman Pediatric Dentistry. Tackling Initial Challenges and Future Roadmap The initial challenges faced by DPC Technology included scaling passed three to four employees. Initially, the organization needed to find the right people in order to add value to its DPC team, so the organization could continue to grow and service its clients with the same level of care. Moving ahead, DPC Technology will continue to integrate more technology and expand beyond its Jacksonville and Orlando offices in the future. DPC Technology offers Technology Assessments to businesses that are interested in learning if they are the right fit for their Complete Care Program.

Customer‘N’ovation

SHOULD

CUSTOMERI

f Henry Ford had questioned people what they wanted, would they really have said ‘faster horses’?

In the realms of business and innovation, Henry Ford was one of the world’s greatest innovators and a quotable aristocrat. Perhaps the most famous quote credited to Ford goes: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Though there are no such real evidences which could prove that Ford ever stated this, but words applied to him still portray that true innovation is done without customer input. Though one of the most successful capitalists in American history had said it, it wouldn’t make the proverb any more appropriate. In fact, there is a possibility, that customers might have told Ford exactly what they wanted -explicitly, a faster mode of transportation. They might not have talked about the need for a combustion engine, but that’s the part of art and science of understanding customer feedback. The customers do not always know the form factors that are available to them, and that’s exactly where your opportunity lies to innovate and cash out your innovation as a businessman. Clients often understand their problems and communicate enough information that you can use to grow your business. Here are some insights on how to get optimized customer feedback.

November 2017

INNOVATION BE DRIVEN? Enquire Thoroughly Most of the times, customers know what they want but are unable to articulate it properly. So, you have to ask precise questions that would allow you to collect perceptions to be used for your innovation. Studies show that giving a client too many choices often nets you poor and disorganized feedback, but it’s also important to give them the opportunity to bring up something that you haven’t anticipated. You should also ask about their personal or business problems. Never ask feature-based questions, if you are selling and innovating with technology for small businesses. Because, they aren’t thinking about technology features, they are more focused on making money and saving time. So, always ask questions around their problem statement and then bridge the gap with your talent and innovation. Statistical Analysis of Numbers and Behaviors A trick to get more reliable feedback indicators is to study the numbers and behavior pattern of the client. If your clients keep saying they love a product in green, but instead, each time they intent to buy blue, then always stick with blue. Study your data and behaviors persistently to make sure that the customers’ words match their actions. Distinguish between Destructive Critics and Constructive Critics While it’s vital to consider all the feedback, including the one from online critics and also customer services, you need to explore more into who is giving that feedback. For example, if you are receiving posts about a problem, take a deep dig into it and ﬁnd out if it’s a real problem. If it doesn’t exist, disregard it.

may go whiny wheels for a personal want, but that doesn’t signify that the broader base of clienteles wants the same, so do more research. Also, keep a check on minions. These are the same group of gofers that keep probing for something or complaining together. If such a thing is happening, they might be just a co-dependent group of trolls you need not worry about. If you are observing different patrons giving concerned response and inputs around the same issues, that would be considered more reliable than many posts or inquiries from the same group of people. The exception to this could be when the group is well-thought-out influential among your customer base. It’s always beneficial to solicit your feedback through private surveys instead of public ones so the vocal minority doesn’t sway your community. Always Segregate the Relevant Group To get a broader scope of responses and valuable feedbacks, reach out to your best existing and desired target customers. If you aren’t sure what and how your customers think, select an evocative number of people and ask them. Surprisingly, customers are more likely to provide you feedbacks if you actually ask them. But, first assure that they are true buyers of your product -- if the responders aren’t going to buy your product, their responses would neither help you nor them. Conclusively, innovation could be customer driven most of the times, but we need to play safe and keep our visions clear. Bag in all the constructive criticism since without criticism there’s no success and innovation.

The same insight goes for wants. A handful of individuals November 2017

Expert’s Insights

THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE WAY TO BUILD AN “IT” BRAND

n today’s data-driven tech world, it appears the priority is all about the speed of innovation and how we move data safely, effectively, efﬁciently and securely. But if no one knows about your solution, how will they purchase and use it?

For those of you who wish to grow in this broad-based IT market, and can strategically plan, there is simply no more cost-effective investment than PR to help establish an organization and its innovations in the very noisy marketplace in which we all compete. In such a world of amazing tech innovation, if we don’t control the story of what we do and what we make, the story will control us. Think about the FAKE NEWS ripping through our social media every day.

Bob Gold Founder, President & CEO Bob Gold & Associates

November 2017

Today we communicate in a virtual three-dimensional level of game-like complexity -- we do more and more on mobile, while managing larger and larger databases of friends and associates on multiple platforms, while multitasking in simultaneous discussions. In other words, it’s noisy out there! Worse still, we usually can’t remember the source of information we share. How noisy is it, you may ask? Ÿ By some counts, the number of marketing technology solutions has doubled since 2015 and will soon surpass 4,000. Ÿ Today’s executives are overwhelmed by the amount of technology choices and confused by vendor claims that their platform can do it all. Before investing in more technology, they want to optimize what they already own. This brings us back to the role of PR in technology. Technology can’t speak for itself. If we want folks to adapt and use our innovations, they must be educated about the beneﬁts they bring. The process of storytelling requires a specialized PR discipline to break beyond the noise buzzing with clichés: “We have an endto-end solution” (isn’t that what you get when you mix salt with water and stir?); “We are Best-of-Class” (which rarely comes with a degree or grade point average); or one of my favorites--the promise to be able to monetize technology investments. Just consider: Ÿ Security – Everybody is hacking everyone else – if it can be made, it can be broken. How can you tell the market, with speciﬁcity, that your security system addresses this issue? Ÿ Lack of Policies - Exploding quantities of data zapped into hidden clouds, without access and use policies means we have

a big problem. Big Data and real-time analytics are super sexy in 2017, (thanks Alexa!) and for an on-demand world where all content is supposed to be available anytime, this will be big! How will you take advantage of this building trend? Ÿ Content Protection – This takes us to a world where everything is on-demand and connected. How will “autonomous

everything” work? In a world facing more confusion than certainty, there is an “opportunity ahead” street sign in your path to address this overwhelming and often confusing situation. So following are some key dos, don’ts and cautions. Caveat emptor – reader beware! There is no one-size-ﬁts-all for every situation, but there are some general rules of thumb that when followed will generate success: 1) START WITH A CLEAR MESSAGE: PR is all about your core message, positioned as a story with a beginning, middle and end – that's just good construction. Good storytelling starts with a clear message. 2) DO SAY WHAT ELSE MAKES YOUR COMPANY DIFFERENT Can you answer these questions about your company and about your product? Ÿ

What are the three core messages about your company? 1. You might think about your founders and executive leadership 2. Are you the most complete (Gulp! I’m gonna say it) solution? Serving which market areas? 3. What problems do you solve for today? Are you visionary and future proof?

3) DO VALIDATE YOUR STORY WITH NUMBERS: What are the most profound messages about your product/service?

November 2017

Expert’s Insights

Can you describe your product more succinctly than, “it’s non-disruptive to install?” State your big customer benefit -- for example is it 50% better than anything else on the market? – Does it consume 50% less bandwidth? Or … think about describing your product validated by numbers and in measurable scope. This brings us back to PR. All connections start with sharing good stories. Breaking through isn’t as simple as sending an email to a reporter, calling a friend or telling one colleague who has 2,000 followers on Twitter. It takes diligence and the ability to find new ways to tell your story over and over again. The case for storytelling has never been more powerful. Your space has never been more competitive and the noise about other companies’ tech options is deafening. PR is the secret sauce that re-interprets the science in human and business benefits that can drive change. Sure, one-on-one word of mouth is powerful, but for businesses, nothing beats engaging, resonant, pervasive, quotable stories, as presented by your experienced PR professional. And PR will beat any other investment as the most cost effective tool in your sales and marketing arsenal.

November 2017

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

Venture Pointe: A True Technology Partner Nick Revels Co-founder & Director of Managed Services

ased in Jacksonville FL. Venture Pointe is a Managed service provider, providing IT solutions for businesses of all sizes. With a leadership that consists a massive fifty years of combined experience, the organization is staffed with technical experts who are trained to all levels of technological needs. By staffing the most qualified people possible and maintaining a stringent inhouse training program, Venture

Jim Satterwhite President & CEO

Pointes’ team has seen and ﬁxed nearly every IT problem that can arise since its inception. Each member of the support team is dedicated to providing the best customer service and represents themselves professionally in both their appearance and in the way, they approach each individual customer. Venture Pointes’ IT service company works closely with its clients to analyze their network and business structure so that it can create a customﬁt, vendor-agnostic solution that meets all security & connectivity requirements. In fact, in recent surveys, most of Venture Pointes’ customers agree that Venture Pointe not only understands their needs but also feels that it is capable of growing with them as an organization. Being a Different Entity in the Crowded Market Venture Pointe prides itself on some pretty basic principles that a lot of MSPs seem to overlook. The organization always listen to its customers and tries to deliver accordingly, and constantly provides clear non-technical communication to

its clients regarding their networks, business relationships and technical needs. By proving its commitment to the clients’ success every day, Venture Pointe quickly becomes their go to source for all technology and communication based services or needs. Each of its clients understands that Venture Pointe truly lives by its tag line “A True Technology Partner” who is genuinely interested in their success as a business. Leaders who Took the Charge Venture Pointe was founded in late 2012 initially by two friends, Josh Lee and Nick Revels, later in 2013 was then joined by Jim Satterwhite, who had worked with and also a friend for several years. Josh having the enterprise level technical experience, Nick with the operations level technical experience combined with a proven track record for client/customer management and development, and Jim who brought large operation process management and development combined with ﬁnancial oversight, provided a base for success and company development.

November 2017

Later on, by supporting that deep level of involvement with well-trained technical staff, operation execution, and with no issues around invoiced expense, i.e. Venture Pointe doesn’t provide any surprises with unforeseen expenses like its competitors, the organization rates very high in all levels of client satisfaction. In fact, for the previous two years 100 percent of the clients think: Ÿ Venture Pointe understands their needs as a business. Ÿ The organization is capable of

Joshua Lee Co-founder & Business Technology Oﬃcer

November 2017

“

Providing Vetted Level of Service and Technology All the customers of Venture Pointe know that the organization is providing a truly vetted level of service and technology. The organization actually speaks with most of its clients on seemingly a daily basis. While this is something most MSP’s try to move away from and automate processes to the extent that their customers hardly know they are there. Venture Pointe becomes so ingrained in the day-to-day activity and planning as a reliable resource, the company in most cases can anticipate issues and direction for a very broad range of customers.

Put an end to your IT nightmares with our managed IT services!

helping their business grow. All the clients would recommend Venture Pointe to a colleague or friend. Ÿ Each of the clients are more than satisfied with the services from Venture Pointe. Ÿ When it comes to communications, all the customers have rated the organization very well. Ÿ Additionally, customers are very satisfied with Venture Pointe as their IT partner & the speed and efficiency at which the organization. Ÿ

All the above are reasons Venture Pointe has NEVER lost a customer as a result of performance or to any competitor. Also, those are some of the reasons why Venture Pointe has been selected in the MSP Mentor 501 rating of the top managed service providers worldwide the past two years and receiving recognition by the TechServe Alliance being named in their small enterprise category for the 2017 Excellence Award. Tackling Rough Patches and Drawing the Future Roadmap Just like any other startup, Venture Pointe took a lot of time in order to ensure it had solid operation processes and rock solid technical environments prior to building the customer base. However, the organization has never said it that it hasn’t changed some processes while growing up. But at ﬁrst it grew operationally and

technically, then began to grow its client base strictly organically and methodically. Only once it reached the point where Venture Pointe felt ready for the next level of growth, it then began all its active marketing and proactive sales based growth. When it comes to the future, Venture Pointe hopes to see an increase in staff levels for all groups; tech support, enterprise management, operations, and ﬁnance. Additional corporate structure deﬁnition in preparation for several large client deployments and Venture Pointes’ continued movement into more states with its support model. Venture Pointe currently supports operations throughout the state of Florida, and extension of Florida-based clients in other states reaching into nine states and one off-shore operation. Currently expansion of the infrastructure is a high priority for the organization especially in 2018. Presently, Venture Pointe utilize three data centers, among those two are in USA and one in Canada. The organization manages its own Cloud Environment, choosing to not be dependent on external services and someone else’s up time.

Tech Talk

oday we are surrounded with many buzzwords: AI, VR, AR, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Machine learning, etc. That may be very stressful, especially if you lead a company and choose which way to turn the wheel. CEOs and top managers are under big pressure and afraid to make mistakes. No one knows which is the best direction or whether you should make a raise on a flop or 3-bet on a turn hoping to catch a full-house. In “From Good to Great” Jim Collins states that technologies can’t the only key to build a Great company, sametime technologies accelerate growth or failure. Here, at VironIT we believe, that companies should focus on 3 key points: Ÿ Your passion. What you really take care of. Ÿ What you believe you can be the best at. Ÿ The appropriate business model you live on. Many companies, who failed had many CEOs with “outstanding innovations programs” which were inconsistent with the previous steps the company had made. So, consistency and perseverance often wins (as Chinese turture). By the way, my college-mate was trying to make a pass at the most beautiful girl at our class and got many denials, but in the end, after 5 years of attempts they got married. Let’s come closer to the point: If you already have a viable product which brings profit, you should think which new technology can enrich your software or business to make “learning curve” higher for your competition. For instance, if you have software which teaches how to drive tractors or excavators, you should definitely apply VR to your existent software. If you are in the middle and want to make a pivot: I advise you to make an experiment and allocate the amount of budget you can for a side research. One of the key success of Israel startups is that the country invests heavily in R&D (4.25% of GDP ).

- I get your point, I don’t have the right people on board. Technical talent is a big issue everywhere. As Collin says in his “Good to Great”, “a company can grow as fast as its ability to hire the right people”. What do we hear about looking for technical talent? Ÿ Hire a good HR agency Ÿ Ask among friends Ÿ Do LinkedIN research Ÿ Try outsourcing to India, get burned and try to outsource Eastern Europe I will share our VironIT’s secret (we never published it online) on hiring savvy technical talent. “It is plain and evident, repeatable anywhere in the world.” We hire developers, who took part in programming contests: topcoder, international competitions, Olympiads, etc. Why does it work? As you don’t know the plot of your tomorrow’s day, you don’t know which tasks you have to cope with. Programming contests have non-trivial tasks to be solved within a short period of time. Programmers who are the best at such competitions can easily crack 95% of other “realworld” programming. They are usually smarter than average developer, used to work under stressful conditions, fast-learners and self-conﬁdent. For such developers, even if they are still undergraduates, within 1-2 weeks of diving into technology they outperform those who had been several years in the industry. Ofc, if you want to build a next MSQRD (the app created at hackathon and sold to Facebook within 3 months after its creation) that approach won’t work. MSQRD’s success story was based on 10 years of experience of one team members in facial recognition. So, hiring some undergraduates with appropriate minds is: Ÿ faster Ÿ cheaper Ÿ doable We used that approach several times and never missed the target. November 2017

TECHNOLOGIES If you just have a raw unique idea: Where should you go? AI, VR, AR, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Machine learning, or maybe IOT? As Jobs said, “Do what you love”. As Collins says: “Do what you are passionate with”. I think all that buzz will bring your ship to some shore. You have to make the right answer to yourself: “Can you be the best at XXX”? where XXX is not only technology, it is more about market industry or vertical market. This year I attended Nassim Taleb’s speech, where he shared his thoughts on antifragile world. I liked the thought “making a bet on unknown”. You never know 100% percent the shore your reach with that ﬂow. Making a bet on unknown can bring you either to positive “Black Swan” or you get nothing. A good try is better than regretting passing by on a deathbed. But here is a trick. The step you take should be consistent with the “core” of your business (unless you choose to open a new branch). It is quite easy to lose focus. “Great” companies also had “non-todo” lists and “immediately-stopdoing” lists. That is very important to say “no” to many good ideas to choose one “great” idea. So, AI, VR, AR, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Machine learning what’s next big thing? I think the next Big Thing is the right combination of well-known things in the right order, implemented by right people at the right time backed by right investors at the right market.

Author: Alexey Grakov Co-owner & Chief Marketing Ofcer VironIT

November 2017

Cloud Tech

Cloud Computing

loud computing, which is often referred to as simply “Cloud” is basically the practice of using a network which is hosted by remote servers on the internet and is widely used to store, access, manage, exchange and process data on the Internet itself instead of using a local server or a personal computer. It is something without which life would have been much more difﬁcult regardless of one’s lifestyle, economic status, profession and educational background. In today’s world, if one has data then cloud computing must be in his or her practice. The tech giant IBM referred to cloud computing as “Cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing resources — everything from applications to data centers — over the internet on a pay-for-use basis.” IBM also mentioned that with the cloud, the resources are much more elastic as it’s faster to meet the demands of the clients, payments are made only for the space that is being used, and nothing extra and cloud offers self-service facilities so that the clients can take the necessary items from the cloud. The tech giant clearly mentioned the beneﬁts of the cloud-based applications or as popularly called software as a service (SaaS), and the most interesting feature of this is that even if the computer breaks down or loses all data, cloud stores them all, and it can be accessed from anywhere around the world from any remote locations. Another

November 2017

important feature of SaaS is that the creating an account is made free of cost and fast. Experts and tech giants divide cloud into three types as public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud.

Public Cloud Public Clouds are deﬁned to be owned and operated by companies that offer rapid access to an affordable computing resource over a public network. The interesting feature of public cloud services is that the users don’t need to invest much in purchasing hardware, software or supporting infrastructure and the providers themselves manage it. .

Private Cloud Experts deﬁne private cloud as an infrastructure which is operated totally by a single organization, and it can be managed both by a third party as well as internally. This type of cloud is hosted either internally or externally. This system is more automated type of management function where there is a resource pool for everything from computing, the capability to storage, analytics, and middleware. It offers an interface which is self-service and is employed in controlling services allowing its staff to quickly provision, allocate and deliver on-demand IT resources. Private cloud computing is designed for the speciﬁc need of a company, giving it much-secured governance.

Hybrid Cloud As the name suggests, a hybrid cloud is a form of cloud which uses private cloud foundation combined with the strategic integration and uses public cloud services. Experts informed that the private cloud cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the company’s IT resources and the public cloud and therefore most companies created hybrid clouds. The hybrid cloud offers some amazing beneﬁts which offer the companies to keep their sensitive data in the traditional data center or private clouds, or anyone they prefer. This system allows the companies to take advantage as laaS for the elastic virtual resources and public cloud resources like SaaS for the latest applications and facilitates more deployment models and more portability options. Global statistics suggested that the adoption of this type of cloud grew three times in the last years.

Security is a major concern in Cloud computing For any company, cloud data security should be the top priority irrespective of what kind of cloud it is. Some of the common threats that cloud computing faces are; data breaches, data loss, insecure interfaces or APIs, account or service traffic hijacking, denial of service, malicious insiders, abuse of cloud services, insufficient due diligence and shared technology vulnerabilities. The nature of the cloud remains dynamic and more the dynamic, more is the increase in the need for automated, agile and elastic approach than the traditional security measures. Whatever the type of cloud is, the security of cloud is an extremely important thing, and the most well known companies which provide cloud and cloud-based security services are IBM Dynamic Cloud Securities, CipherCloud, Bitium, McAfee Cloud Security, MyPermissions, Netskope, Skyhigh Networks, SafeNet, and Snoopwall. As stated in a report, 60% of engineering professionals and organizations confirm that the main reason behind slowing down in cloud adoption plans is the lack of security skills. The countries like Japan, Gulf Coast Council (GCC) which includes Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and Mexico are the ones who are in need of cloud security specialists. These are the countries where IT solution provider companies should focus the most and make new investments to start their ventures of cloud computing. An official survey indicated that the Australia and Canada are leading the world in public cloud adoption whereas the Gulf Coast Council is leading the globe in private cloud adoption. Yet, GCC is in urgent need of security skills. So GCC must be on the top most priority list where investments can be made by IT solution provider companies.

November 2017

The 10 Most Valuable Managed Service Providers 2017

VIPR: Providing Solutions for the Insurance Industry

ata is an ongoing challenge for the insurance industry as the amount of data received is vast. Thousands of spreadsheets are being presented each month, containing information on premiums written, premiums paid and claims made. Each spreadsheet can contain thousands of rows of data with multiple columns, so a single document could contain millions of individual cells of data. Technology is essential to allow organizations to get to grips with data to understand their business as well as comply with industry regulations.

ﬁve products in its portfolio, including; Active Underwriter; a quote and bind solution, Intrali; a data management product, Intarga; an online workﬂow tool, Active Reports; a reporting tool, and Consensus; the company’s latest product targeting group life insurers allowing them to standarize membership data. The Farsighted Leader Richard Brown, Director of VIPR, co-founded the company alongside his brother Bob Brown back in 2009. Prior

to VIPR, the entrepreneurs successfully launched and subsequently sold Moneynet.co.uk – the ﬁrst personal ﬁnance comparison site in the UK. At VIPR, Richard looks after the management of business and is fully involved in client relations, as well as product strategy and development. “In order for us to provide the latest technology and stay ahead of the marketplace, we are constantly reviewing other products on the market, but above all we listen. We listen to the regulators, we listen to the industry and we listen to our clients. We often hear clients complaining about competitor products that don’t really do what they are supposed to do or what is expected of them. We believe in building products that are the very best, simple to understand and use and do ‘as it says on the tin’. We don’t overcomplicate things for the sake of it and we avoid anything that cannot be done quickly and easily explained,” asserts Brown while talking about their market understandings and uniqueness. Catering to customer needs According to VIPR, getting traction in a market where it was relatively

VIPR is one company that has developed innovative software solutions in response to the needs of the insurance market. By listening to its customers and taking on board what the market has to offer, the company has created products that enable insurers to standardize, cleanse and validate incoming data – quickly and easily. This also gives them a better understanding of their data and back ofﬁce processes. Currently, VIPR has

November 2017

Today, VIPR prides itself on being dedicated and committed to its customers, maintaining excellent customer relationships and going the extra mile to keep clients happy. One way VIPR does this is by hosting regular user group meetings which brings together its clients to share their needs and challenges. These events provide much needed insights that often determine product and service development. VIPR recently became alerted to an issue that was raised amongst the industry and its customers, who found that even with modern systems in place, there is still a need for some human intervention. “Even when clients have products in place we often hear that they are not maximizing the

Richard Brown Director & Co-founder

November 2017

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We thoroughly believe in the value of our clients; we know that by meeting their needs we meet the needs of the market

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unknown was a massive challenge to start with. Although it took a while for the company to get its ﬁrst few customers on board, they were crucial to the organization’s success and the development of the VIPR brand.

benefits of their software,” states Brown. He explains “It’s not uncommon to find that companies don’t always have time or the resources to get the best from their systems. If staff move on new starters often do not get the trained effectively due to time constraints, and therefore creating a knowledge gap and inconsistencies when using software.” Because of this VIPR launched VIPR Managed Service (VMS). In conjunction with London consultants JDX they now offer a fully managed service, operated by trained staff to take the pressure off clients who don’t have the internal resource or expertise to manage their mission-critical systems. VIPR’s clients can be confident that all VMS staff are vigorously trained in VIPR’s products so they know what they are doing. They receive one-to-one training over a week long intensive course, where they have hands-on training with VIPR systems followed by both a practical and theory exam certifying each VMS trainee. Training provides them with a wide breadth of experience and skills allowing them to fully understand and address issues raised by clients.

Most importantly and as with all VIPR’s service and products, its offerings to the industry are the very best, yet simple to understand. VIPR doesn’t overcomplicate things for the sake of it and avoids anything that cannot be done quickly and easily explained. Drawing the Future Path When it comes to its future, VIPR will continue to invest in its products to evolve and adapt to current market circumstances and future challenges, but the company will also be active in other business sectors as well as other territories across the US and Europe. On top of this VIPR is also starting on a new offering, partnering with a third party. This offering will allow the industry to manage and process data in an efﬁcient, accurate and secure data exchange.

IT Insights

Top Queries to Ask Your

Before You Do

Provider —

Business with Them

nyone can say that they offer IT services. But are they providing the right kind of service for your business? It’s important to ask the right questions when making your decision. We have compiled a list of queries for you to ensure you have the tools to identify if the IT provider of your choice can truly fulfill your needs. You need to make sure that the IT provider is competent and experienced in serving your organization, puts your needs above all else, and has the tools and resources to get the job done securely and efficiently. How Long They Have Been in the Business According to the US Small Business Administration, roughly 50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. It’s important to be able to trust and rely on the company of your choice. It’s important to know how long they’ve been in business as well as how successful they have been over that time as it will give you a better assessment of their ability to fulfill your needs. The Type of Insurance They Have If the company doesn’t have insurance and something goes wrong or someone gets hurt, they may not have the finances on their own to salvage everything. Prior Experience in the Vertical If they’ve only focused on companies entirely unrelated to how you handle your business, they may not have as much expertise or insight as an IT provider that has had many different clients in a variety of industries.

If They Provide Onsite Support or Outsourced Support The best IT providers staff their own helpdesk support onsite, at their office, so they can train them, keep their certifications updated, and make sure they have good people working for them. It should be important to them that their staff has intimate knowledge of what your business does and their client base in order to provide the best assistance and customer service possible. What Their Support Hours Are You want to make sure there is always someone there to help if something goes wrong, no matter when. Emergencies don’t wait until the weekend or holiday is over. The best IT providers have ability to help you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Measure Customer Satisfaction A quality IT provider should be calling clients and performing surveys. The clients chosen should be random (not just their happy clients.), and should rate their customer service experience on: reliability, performance, security, problem resolution, friendliness, professionalism, and timeliness. If They Have an Out Clause After signing the contract with an IT provider, you may find after some time that they are not a good fit for you. What happens then? Are you stuck in a long-term contract with them anyway? Or do they have any sort of Out Clause in their contract that will allow termination if your needs are left unfulfilled. November 2017

Usage of Up to Date Technology If your IT provider uses outdated technology and aren’t always keeping their eyes open for new technologies, they may not have the capability to do the job right. And don’t just take their word for it – make sure they can prove it. Guaranteed Response Time It’s important to have a good idea of how long it takes the provider to tackle whatever issues your technology may come across and make sure it’s within a reasonable time frame. The right IT provider should offer you a Service Level Agreement (SLA). The SLA indicates the response time that their team guarantees. Use Two-Factor Authentication You want to ensure your IT provider is using the most advanced methods possible to keep your data secure. TwoFactor Authentication is an extra layer of security that requires not only a password and username but also something the user has on them, such as a pin, fingerprint, ID card, etc. Secure Storage of Important Data and Passwords A capable IT provider has the latest security features to ensure your personal information is kept safe. If you can’t trust an IT provider to keep their systems secure, can you trust them to protect yours? The right IT provider will store all passwords in a password repository system which requires 2-factor authentication. They should also have procedures in place in case of an employee termination to ensure there is no risk of unauthorized access. 3rd Party Penetration Testing of Their Business Many IT providers may offer business penetration and security tests, but have they been tested themselves? Many IT providers have not had their own systems tested by a 3rd party. Others who have been tested have found that they are not as secure as they advertise themselves to be. Choosing the right IT provider is not an easy decision. There are numerous factors that need to be considered that should not be taken lightly. Using the questions above will be very helpful in the vetting process to separate the strong contenders from the rest and assist you in making a final decision with confidence.

November 2017

About The Author Christopher Coluccio is the CEO & Co-Founder of Techworks Consulting, Inc. From his early years, Chris had a love of computers, coding his ﬁrst program at the age of 8. He went on to study Computer Science at Dowling College. During that time, he worked on projects such as the “Big Dig” in Boston and large construction projects in Manhattan. He went on to become the IT Administrator of one of the largest print manufacturers on Long Island. It was around that time that he met his business partner, Keith, and the building blocks of Techworks began. Incepting in 2002, he was able to make their dream a reality. Chris is widely-recognized for his vigorous advocacy of technological innovations and high standards for quality support and services. Having over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, Chris has worked with numerous companies spanning various industries providing services to keep their organizations running smoothly and securely. Chris is also the co-chair of the HIA-LI Technology for Business Committee.

Light your Own way