Cloud services aren't a completely new focus for us – we started offering offsite back-up and recovery about eight years ago, moving into hosted exchange shortly afterwards. When Microsoft announced it was launching a new, complete cloud suite, we couldn't have foreseen the impact it would have on our own portfolio. The breadth and depth of services was unprecedented and we knew it would firmly open the doors of cloud capability to businesses of all sizes.
The potential cost and security benefits of a Microsoft-hosted solution were also immediately apparent and we decided, as a business, to cease investment in our own service. That was 18 months ago, and now our business has a large focus on the cloud. We recommend Office 365 to many of our customers because of the far-reaching benefits they receive, and the value it provides our business too.
We are first and foremost a service company and for many of our customers we effectively become their IT department. We meet with the customer, find out their requirements, scope what they need and recommend the right infrastructure. We then provide a range of services to help them move their users and data into the new environment, and keep their service running smoothly.
No customer is the same so we offer a range of Office 365 services to give them a complete 'turnkey' solution. Through assisted migration, we support the customer technically and help them implement a best practice migration methodology. Where a complete migration service is required, the whole process is outsourced to us. Office 365 can often have knock-on effects on how the business runs so an important part of the service we provide is also ensuring customers understand and plan for the implications on business operations.
Trial is a key step in the customer's journey to the cloud and we help to demystify it for them. We ensure they get the best value from that experience, by guiding them through the process, troubleshooting any issues, making sure they understand what Office 365 can offer and what benefits it can deliver. Following a successful implementation and migration, we provide end-to-end support using Windows Intune to manage the entire IT estate, not just Office 365. We've now migrated a significant number of customers into the cloud and have built up deep experience of what's involved – we know the things to look out for and we know what applications can help that process.
As an IT services business, Office 365 brings immeasurable benefits and returns! We want to provide our customers with great quality IT support, in the easiest way. With everything in the cloud, the environment is easy to manage, and away from potential threats in the office environment like air conditioning breaking, power cuts etc. Office 365 allows us to minimise 'break/fix' support calls and free-up our team to be as agile and responsive as possible to other customer requirements.
Cloud services have given our business a means of accelerating growth in tough recessionary times. Last year we achieved high double digit revenue growth and we've successfully shifted our business model and people profile. We've been able to move away from a historic labour intensive model, taking on significantly more customers without growing our technical team. The level of experience and skills in our consulting team is now second to none. Gone are the days of battling to win customers on hardware margin. Office 365 has allowed us become a valued expert in our field and a large proportion of our business comes through referrals.
It's also opened up doors to new customer segments. By being able to demonstrate cost per employee budgeting and how Office 365 helps financial forecasting, we have a stronger engagement with finance directors. Our customer base spans organisation of all sizes and industry, including a number of large FSA customers who are highly regulated.
We don't see that wide-reaching business interest slowing down either. Since early 2013 we've been aware of a real uplift in customer understanding around Office 365 and that certainly helps when engaging new business. The momentum around Office 365 has helped dissolve much of the early cynicism and security fears around cloud services as a whole.
Of course, part of effectively selling Office 365 is being able to say 'we use it too!' We took the decision a long time ago that we were going to use the products we support our customers with. So, our own business runs on Office 365 and our website is also built on SharePoint. We couldn't be happier!
The cloud has come of age. Customers are now seriously looking to safely outsource their IT environment and Office 365 is just the beginning of their journey... and our engagement. Many are also evaluating the wealth of applications that extend the Office 365 environment, which is becoming increasingly important from an integration perspective too. The world of IT constantly moves and changes – after 22 years in the business we know how important it is to keep in touch with new technologies. The next stage in our own journey is embracing Azure – we're looking at how it can further extend our services and new Microsoft offerings as they come to market.
Business adoption of the cloud for IT service delivery is just going to get bigger and bigger. To survive and grow your business, you have to become more services driven, you have to be focused on the customer, and you have to be able to offer them a cloud solution. That's the new world and we're in it for the long term! We have made our change in direction and we will continue to confidently grow the business with Microsoft cloud services.
Nik Topham is the managing director at Sol-Tec
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