Case study: Unlocking the benefits of Microsoft Office 365 and Azure …with a little help from intY
“The need to digitally transform their business is becoming an increasingly regular conversation held amongst customers. Historically, it was a conversation typically had with the IT director, but more so than ever we find ourselves speaking to C-level execs who are keen to apply digital transformation strategies to streamline processes, drive greater efficiencies, improve and accelerate decision-making, and expand business reach. A key pillar of the digital transformation ecosystem without a doubt is cloud computing and it’s in this context that the future of the cloud needs to be seen.””
Background
Unlimit the Limited, is a computer infrastructure and software support company based in Blackpool, Lancashire. The company was set up over 10 years ago to offer a range of services designed to cater for the individual needs of its clients no matter their budget. Today, the company has grown significantly, pushing past the boundaries of Lancashire, and is now supporting clients across the UK and into Europe. A key component for its success is its ability to provide customers with access to first class technology solutions. Cloud is core to this, and enables firms to take advantage of operational efficiencies and potential for new product and application development that cloud technology offers. A firm that wants to succeed in the era of digital transformation must look to the most effective technology to help them do so, and it is increasingly clear that this will be the cloud.
Challenge
Unlimit the Limited’s ability to access Microsoft’s Office 365 and Azure services is critical for its customers. As a name, Microsoft is well understood and trusted amongst customers, and because of this it experiences huge demand for both services, but meeting this demand is not without its challenges, as Waldron discusses:
“Working with Microsoft is incredibly reassuring for our customers. They want to have the confidence that the software they operate with is compatible across the world, as well as having assurances that in the event of an IT failure their data will remain safe. They get that from Microsoft, and because of that we receive high demand for both Office 365 and Azure services, but managing these licences directly via Microsoft is not easy. We have excellent relationships with them, but also understand that Microsoft is responsible for over 60million Office 365 users across the planet. If we need to on-board new customers it can sometimes take a week to do so. Our clients understand this too, but doesn’t mean they always like it.”
Waldron continues: “In summer 2017, we took active steps to look at ways to how we could improve how we on-board customers, particularly those interested in Microsoft services. It was at this point that we were introduced to intY.”
Solution
“The size and scale of Microsoft’s operation, when compared to our own, means that direct communication is not always instant and any challenges experienced with any of the services we use, can sometimes take time to resolve, which can impact our customers. When searching for a new partner to obtain the Microsoft licenses through, we needed to have confidence that they could better our own efforts, improving our on-boarding process. When we were first introduced to intY this was instantly apparent.”
Waldron discusses in more detail: “Typically, when raising a support case and activating a new license, this might take a week, but intY could do this in a few seconds. This level of speed and service was unprecedented for us. It meant we could spend significantly more time adding value to our customer’s businesses, safe in the knowledge that any issues could be resolved almost instantaneously. Critically, it wasn’t just the speed in which intY acted that was the only thing to impress us, it was also how willing they were to engage with us
and understand our business. Any questions that we had, we could go to them directly and get an immediate response to, which in turn rapidly increased our response times to our customers. We speak to our account manager on an almost daily basis, and have confidence in knowing that they have our best interests at heart. In doing so, this has allowed us to achieve the initial goal we set out; that being improving how we could on board customers, and critically, we have the data to prove it.”