MicroAge Accelerates Speed and Accuracy with Voleer
“Our speed and accuracy are through the roof! Over the last 12 months, we estimate a 30% reduction in discovery and planning time with Voleer.”
What would you pay to speed up technology project planning by 30%? Rick Trujillo and Kyle Yencer from MicroAge think Voleer isn’t charging enough.
“Now don’t get us wrong,” said Rick, Director of Cloud Services Presales and Connected Workforce at MicroAge. “We love Voleer’s low annual fee, but we think the value is so much more.”
“Voleer is a no-brainer,” added Kyle, VP of Services and Connected Workforce at MicroAge. “One large-scale project, and Voleer pays for itself in the time it saves and the value added to our clients.”
MicroAge and Voleer – a match made in the cloud
MicroAge is a cloud-focused IT services provider (ITSP) that began as one of the first U.S. computer stores in the 1970s. Over five decades, the company has evolved with the rapidly changing pace of technology to help customers secure, accelerate, and transform their businesses. MicroAge relies on MigrationWiz to move their customers to the cloud. Through this relationship, they were introduced to Voleer, BitTitan’s IT automation platform.
“Our original focus was on the migration project scoping assessment,” said Rick. “But then Kyle started looking into the entire library. He pointed out that there was a lot more we could be doing with our subscription.”
Now, MicroAge relies on Voleer automation, reporting, and analytics to save time and provide advanced services during pre-sales and ongoing engagements.
Putting Voleer to work for customers
Voleer has quick and non-invasive tools that provide more accurate scoping for migration projects. At MicroAge, they use the Microsoft 365 Tenant Migration Assessment to understand the customer’s source and destination environments to accurately quote the correct number of MigrationWiz licenses and estimate the duration of the project.
“Most of the time we do environment discovery in our planning meeting with the client,” said Rick. “We don’t have to schedule a separate meeting or have them grant access to their environment. We can drop a code into the Teams meeting chat with the client and in five to ten minutes the client’s work is done and we will have access to a report with all the information we need.”
Voleer has added value to their managed services relationships as well. MicroAge packages quarterly automations – branded as MicroAge Reporting and Analytics – to report on usage, adoption, and security. They also provide adoption reports 60 days after a Microsoft Teams migration to help clients identify ways to encourage users take full advantage of the Microsoft 365 suite.
“The reporting and analytics we can provide to customers aren’t available in the Microsoft 365 tenant,” said Rick. “It’s a value-added part of our advanced services package for managed services clients.”
Voleer assessments not only save the MicroAge team time, helping projects run more smoothly, they give clients more insights into their IT environment. And that means better planning and control.
In IT services, time is money
Kyle painted a picture of a typical migration project before and after using Voleer. He described two very similar tenant-to-tenant migrations in organizations with about 500 users. These migrations happened about a year apart.
“Before, I had to manually compile information and create spreadsheets of all the users in both tenants,” explained Kyle. “This included gathering information about Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive so we could estimate the amount of licenses the customer would need. The process was incredibly time consuming - it took about 80 to 100 hours of discovery and prep.”
Today, the MicroAge sales team uses the tenant-to-tenant migration assessment from Voleer to quickly identify the number and type of licenses they will need. What previously took a week now takes about an hour to complete – and it’s much more accurate.
“Voleer has completely changed our fudge factor,” said Kyle. “In the past we’d have to include a wide margin of error – a factor of about 20 percent – because we didn’t want to come back and ask customers to buy more licenses. Now we only have to round up to account for any new onboards.”
A partnership that pays
By using Voleer assessments, MicroAge is saving money through project efficiencies. They estimate a 30% reduction in discovery and planning time. They’re able to deliver smoother migrations, too, with a much clearer understanding of the customer’s environment. And, with more accurate project scoping, they’re saving money for clients, too.
“Our speed and accuracy are through the roof,” said Kyle.
Rick and Kyle describe the MicroAge difference as a combination of good tools and good people. With tools from Voleer, they can focus on doing what they do best – serving their customers for the long term.
“The Voleer team has worked with us so we know how to use their assessments to benefit our business. They also listened to us, and we’re even seeing how the Voleer library has evolved over the past year with some of our suggestions,” said Rick. “It’s a real partnership of helping each other improve.”
Find out how Voleer adds efficiency and insights for ITSPs and MSPs. Contact us to learn more about solutions from Voleer.
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