www.managedITmag.co.uk 29 IT SERVICES is Microsoft Viva, particularly in relation to the onboarding of new employees in an era of hybrid working. “Historically, we've hired people who are geographically located within Greater Manchester, people who live in and around the office, but our customers are all over the country, so it doesn't make sense just to hire people in Manchester. It makes sense to hire people all over the place. The problem with that is you've got to engage those people, you've got to teach them how you work and how your systems work. This wasn’t a problem when new employees were stuck in an office with their colleagues. They would organically learn your systems and processes and always be able to nip over to somebody’s desk and say ‘I’ve forgotten how to do this’ or ‘Can you tell me how we do that?’ or ‘How do I get access to this document?’. “With workforces becoming more distributed and people realising they can employ somebody to do a job no matter where they’re located, I think there’s going to be a massive focus on employee onboarding. We're trying to get ahead of the curve by ensuring our customers have all the technology they need at their disposal, including Microsoft Viva. I don't think many people are aware of it, but all your employee engagement and learning can be in Microsoft Viva, so when somebody needs advice on how to do something they can find a video in Viva that shows them what to do. I think that's going to be huge over the next few years.” Extensive capabilities While Everything Tech is very much a Microsoft house, its relationships and capabilities are much more extensive than that. It is a longterm user of Datto’s Autotask PSA software and RMM to manage its own operations and its customers’, and it has a mature technology stack that includes products from a variety of vendors, including Cisco Meraki for remote connectivity and SentinelOne and Webroot for intrusion detection. Wrall shies away from using the term Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), but he does see security as an important part of Everything Tech’s engagement with customers. “We don't advertise ourselves as an MSSP, but I think that's what we're doing. Any good MSP of a certain size will be offering such products and services organically as part of their offering,” he says. “Last year, we became one of the only MSPs in the country to impose two factor authentication across our entire customer base. It was a massive challenge for us. We've got more than 5,000 users on our books, so turning to two factor authentication across that entire customer base was an enormous task. And we’re heavily invested in getting our clients to do security awareness training. It’s inexpensive – it costs a couple of pounds per person, per month for a structured training and testing programme.” Wrall adds that Everything Tech puts a lot of emphasis on training across the board, especially when moving clients to Microsoft Modern Workplace. “SMEs are very, very bad at deploying fantastic technology and never teaching anybody how to use it, so we put a lot of emphasis on making sure that when we move people to this new, modern way of working we train them in how to use it. It's a radical change to be able to access your files in a browser and training is a big part of our offering.” This feeds into another of Everything Tech’s key selling points – regular interaction with customers. “A lot of our competitors are break-fix MSPs, so customers only hear from them when something's broken. Our strategy is to be a proactive MSP. Every customer that joins us gets allocated a Technical Lead with a decade’s experience in IT. Each Technical Lead has no more than 10 clients and it’s his or her responsibility to help customers move forward with technology, as opposed to just fixing tech once it’s broken. Every month, clients get a visit from their Technical Lead and, because he or she sees technologies across all 10 of their customers, they can say ‘My other client uses this. I think it would be good for you too’. We’ve been doing that for 12 years, and I think it's pretty unique in our industry.” When it comes to what’s next for Everything Tech, Wrall says a top priority is to expand that Microsoft technology stack, with a particular focus on building expertise in Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics, which he hopes to achieve through a combination of further acquisitions and staff training and development – last month, Everything Tech announced a six-figure investment in training to help employees gain key industry and professional certifications. “We want to get to a place where we can do things end to end, from really basic MSP stuff, like answering the phone and fixing tickets, right through to CRM and ERP, so that we can offer our customer base the whole extent of that Microsoft Modern Workplace offering.” www.everythingtech.co.uk Everything Techies (left to right): Lee Wrall, Sales and Marketing Director; Ben Turner, Head of Technical Operational Delivery; Ruth Hall, Managing Director; Katie Taylor, Marketing Executive; and Chloe Baylis, Project Manager
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