Boring Business Systems’ switch to Managed Workplace + Help Desk & NOC Services pays off
The customer
Boring Business Systems has been providing essential services to Florida businesses since 1924. In the beginning, they supplied typewriters and office equipment. Today they have expanded this focus to network services. The company has grown and evolved with the times, equipping SMBs with the essential tools of the day. Now, Boring is a $10M business and leading technology provider throughout central Florida.
The challenge
In 2012, Boring brought on Chris Hart as Virtual Chief Information Officer. He spearheaded the network services department with a focus on managed services.
“When I joined,” Chris tells us, “the network services department was new, small, and did about $75,000 a year in revenue. We were doing very little managed security. I knew what managed services could enable, but not how to scale it. I felt strongly that an exclusive focus on managed services was the way to go, as opposed to break-fix services or time-block billing for customers.”
Boring began offering managed services, and it was a huge success. “We soon became the ideal partner,” Chris adds. “Our customers quickly recognized the advantages of having a team that was always there to support them versus one guy who wasn’t always available. This strategy enabled us to quickly establish leadership.”
To continue a successful strategy, Chris needed a technology partner that would enable him to scale and deliver the best managed security services effectively.
The solution
Two years ago, Chris made the switch from a competitive RMM solution to Avast Business Managed Workplace.
“One of the reasons I made the change was Managed Workplace’s monitoring and alerting capabilities,” Chris explains. “In the past, if the RMM didn’t provide comprehensive monitoring and alerting for workstations as well as servers, CPUs could max out on the workstations, and if we weren’t alerted, we couldn’t catch the issue in advance. Managed Workplace enables us to monitor both our workstations and servers using the same technology in a single pane of glass and receive alerts when there are issues.”
Once he switched to Avast Business, Chris immediately started saving money and increasing his bottom line. “We were getting more features and added benefits for less. That is still true to this day by reducing onboarding time with the service plans, improving technician efficiency with security assessments, and adding Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus.”
The results
With Managed Workplace, Boring has improved onboarding time by 30% and efficiency by 15% through service plans, security assessment, and other Managed Workplace RMM features.
“With our exclusive focus on managed security, we couldn’t do what we do without Managed Workplace,” Chris reports. “With the endpoint protection and network management in one RMM platform, it’s the core of all our offerings.”
On its website, Boring calls out that they don’t push products, they push expertise. It’s not about the brand names to them, it’s about using the right tools and having the right people. That’s why Chris values his partnership with the Avast Business team, who is always there for him.
A recent example of the strength of this partnership was last September when Hurricane Irma was about to hit central Florida. For Chris, hurricane preparation was always routine but that changed when Hurricane Irma made landfall on September 11, 2017. Chris explains, “My AVG-Avast account manager Gord Cairns phoned me a few days before the hurricane was predicted to hit, asking if he could help in any way. I told him we would be fine.” Then the storm shifted direction and Chris realized he would need the AVG-Avast team’s help managing their customer calls. There would be power outages and customers calling to get their systems back online. “I called Gord Sunday evening, I didn’t expect a quick response.” One hour later, Gord responded to tell him that any Avast Business NOC and help desk services they needed would be provided at no additional cost.
“That next day, we lost power to sixty-eight of our sites,” remembers Chris. “The AVG-Avast support enabled us to get our techs out to the field helping customers. The customer phone calls and urgent issues were handled promptly and professionally. This really opened our eyes to the fact this was a real partnership.”
If you want to find out more about the Avast Business channel partner program or how Avast Business Managed Workplace can drive benefits for your business and customers, visit Avast Business.
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