So today we're joined by Andy, our senior customer strategy advisor who will be
discussing strategic engagement. So just sharing a little bit about a month ago,
we had our annual tech fair where you spoke about strategic engagement. So I was
hoping you would start with just a little level set. What are we, for people who
didn't attend that session, what are we talking about today? Absolutely. No,
strategic engagement, probably the closest analogy you can make that
potentially maybe other partners offer is virtual CIO. So it's very similar type
of service and type of advice and consulting as that virtual CIO type
service. At CIT we call it strategic engagement because it's a little bit
different flavor even though some of the deliverables might end up being the
same. What we try to do at CIT with strategic engagement and it's a service
that's only available to our managed services customers. So if you have any
questions about it, you want to know more, please reach out to an account
manager to get more information about for your company. But what we're trying to
do is help our customers plan and look ahead for a couple things. One,
for general IT budgeting because one of the biggest headaches, especially
management and C-level tend to have is something breaks and now you've got to
hand over a check for a really large sum of money that you weren't planning on.
So not just being there as a sales resource because our customers already
have a sales contact with CIT, but trying to be that strategic person that can help
them look a year, three, five years down the road and not only look at things like
hardware because obviously those hardware tend to have a little bit of a
predictable cycle. You know about how long a laptop is going to last, you know
about how long a server or firewall those types of things are going to last.
So those are relatively simple but also making sure we get those things on the
radar but also start talking about other things as people mature in their
journey as far as mitigating risk which is one of the other things we try to
help our customers do. Let's bring that risk level down as low as we possibly can.
Can we get it to zero? Probably not. There's always going to be some factor of
risk in there and it may just be a thing where a customer has budget
concerns. You know we'd love to do these things that you're recommending Andy but
we can't do them all next year so we got to help them identify okay well let's
just pick off this one first and go from there and really try to help them get a
plan for if you want to get from point A to point B on that maturity level and
reducing risk how do we help them do that so they can plan it out. They can see it
on a spreadsheet or some kind of planning tool and feel comfortable that
we're not just trying to you know send our flavor of the month at them and have
them buy it but really look at what can benefit their program. What does it mean
and where does it all fit in the landscape as I'm sure many of you have
heard some of the podcasts that our cybersecurity team does there are a lot
of tools out there so one of the challenges for that team and our team
is letting customers know where does this stuff all fit in the landscape and
we might not necessarily have the answer as a customer strategy advisor but
bringing in that subject matter expert to really help them get the feel for where
does this fit because we have this tool in that tool and do all those sorts of
things. One of the other things we do as part of strategic engagement is really
be that advocate for the customer. If there's any type of service issue or a
thing that they need help with we're there to advocate internally at CIT on
their behalf to make sure that they get resolution that the customers are having
a good experience with CIT and if there's any type of issue that we stay on top of
it now we get resolved as soon as possible so those that's primarily kind
of in a nutshell what what what strategic engagement is doing so we're
helping with planning we're trying to mitigate risk and we're also being an
advocate for the customer. I love it that's that's I feel like you answered a
lot of my questions which is so great I'm still gonna pose them to you because
we got some audience questions from our tech fair so I just want to thank those
listening who sent those in and the first one is sort of so we talked about
strategic engagement which seems like this huge umbrella of all these
different things what really makes that different than like a traditional you
know approach that other companies are doing. Sure a lot of times that that
virtual CIO tends to be a third party so sometimes they offer it and
it's so it's kind of a fine line that we have to walk is that we're trying to be
a consultant and an advisor for our customers but at the same time they're
a customer of us they're already you know are we gonna recommend our own
solutions well sure is it the Fox watching the hand house you can look
you can look at it that way you know so but what we're trying to do is we're
trying to give them honest advice and not just be a salesperson to them we
really want to try to give them good advice on where they're going and what
the right tools are and really try to be that's that that advocate and that
advisor a trusted advisor for them really just not just someone they can you know
go get a third-party consultant and you know come in and do that stuff for them
we're trying to really get that partnership with our customers to help
them advocate for for whatever their needs are and help them reduce that risk
for sure so when you sit down and talk to these companies or these meetings
sort of start rolling what are those common challenges that you're seeing a
lot of companies or businesses bring to the table no great great question so
short-term what we're seeing a lot of is is budgeting there some customers kind
of have some little bit of trepidation they're not really sure what's coming
just as far as the economy in general in 2024 so we're trying to be sensitive to
that even though their customer really may have some some glaring needs or some
glaring gaps some some risk items that that really are front and center but
they may be worried about budgeting they don't want to extend too far that type
of thing they really want to do right by themselves too so one of that one of
the challenges we are facing it is is getting customers to adopt things that
they that they need or can help them reduce risk be more secure whatever
those things are but because of some of that uncertainty that they that they
feel they see some those things can kind of move slow and that's and that's
common so it kind of ties back to we were talking about four about you know
budget tends to be a considerable budgets always a concern regardless of yeah you
know the economy people you know money it makes it makes a difference we got to
be conscious of that and paying attention to a budget in particular the
normal cycles of the economy you know that's ups its downs and people are
worried that there's gonna be a big one potentially next year so we do we know
what's gonna happen of course and I can't see in the future but we try to be
be sensitive to that and even we're recommending things you know we can say
okay even if we're looking at this not necessarily for next year let's at least
get it on the roadmap for that following year or if something changes next year
perhaps we can move that up from a 2025 item to a late in the year 2024 and we
can be flexible that way so that's probably the most common challenge they
face one of the other ones is getting pushed back from their their decision
makers we may have a decision maker on our regular calls with us we hope that
we do it depends on the the type of meeting it is if we're just doing a
regular meeting to make sure we're staying on top of any potential service
items you may not have a decision make you may have someone who's who it falls
under their purview that's normal thing when you get to a maybe a monthly talk
you same type of thing we could be handling operational things checking in
on projects but we may do and be looking at other items that are
strategic when we get to our regular strategic business reviews where we're
taking that bigger picture and really trying to plan ahead we really hope to
have the decision makers in there because one of the common feedback we get is
that our primary contact is gonna say you know I really think we need to do this
but I'm really having trouble getting that approved you know on that sea level
above me and then and part of it sometimes is just education stating the
case and really as we're talking about the previous question how do all these
tools fit into the landscape and you just just sending me you know the next product
my way no we're really looking at trying to do right by you and get the right fit
for you based on your environment the size of organization you are so that's
probably one of the biggest challenges is getting that adoption and overcoming
some of those barriers like you know something as simple as MFA oh gosh my
users won't go for it it's such a change for them it's like well yeah that it will
be a change for them but you know the last thing we want to do is heaven forbid
have some type of incident because someone was a stubborn that they couldn't
change their process right and you know we all know what happens when other
customers that don't have MFA and what the type of things that can happen as we
read about in the news so it's getting that adoption getting customers who are
saying you know we know we need this we're gonna move forward with it we're
gonna help our our users educate them on what that process changes as if there is
one so that way that transition or whatever that new tool is or the the
right fit is it's a little bit easier transition than just dropping something
on and so you kind of led into one of my you know future questions when you're
talking about reviews you know we hope to have these you know x y and z sitting
at the table and we did have a specific questions about who should be at that
review you know how often is that review happening our texts should it admin be
there should C level be there could you go into a little bit more detail about
that specifically absolutely so we have our regular calls our weekly a monthly
something like that we don't necessarily have to have the the top-end
decision-makers your C level your president CFOs we don't have to if they
want to be involved they're more than welcome to but we really want them
whenever possible to be a part of those strategic business reviews and should we
have tech people in there as well absolutely and the reason for that is
you know I could talk to a customer and say you know this is really something we
highly recommend it is a definitely a need for your organization they might the
first thing they'll do is turn to their trusted technology person within the
company and say you know what do you think of this stuff that CIT is telling
me and he or she might say yep I'm gonna complete agreement with it or yes but
here are some challenges we'll face or they might you know sure that could they
say no I don't think we need that right now but we should put that on the road
map for you know next quarter next year whatever it might be so it is really
important to have those people involved because otherwise you did your day-to-day
contact the last you want to do is feel like you're just jumping right over them
that they're not important that they're all it's everyone's part of the process
both this the team at CIT we want to have the right technical people when it
when it's appropriate in those meetings same thing with the customer we want the
technical people they're involved when it makes it when it's when it's appropriate
just to make sure that if there are any questions about how something fits in
their environment that they can talk to their trusted advisor whether it's a CIT
person or someone internal to their organization so that's that that's kind
of my thoughts on that we what some of our best relationships with customers
tend to be when there is some type of internal IT presence there doesn't
necessarily need to be someone the level of an IT director and IT manager could
be simply someone who's a desktop support specialist or a subject matter
expert on the core app that the company uses because they're gonna know more
about it than we believe we might we might be familiar with it on a high level
but this person really knows how it works within their organization so it's
great to have that partnership too so we all want to make sure that we include
them in those reviews when it's appropriate. Definitely that's awesome.
To one last question then I'll kind of open it up if you there's anything else
you want to share we had an audience question about what are kind of the
biggest trends or what are the biggest kind of like focus that's happening out
there in my second part to that is what should be the focus so what right
trends and focus are you seeing and then what should they be focusing on
maybe it's the same different I don't know. They kind of tend to go in and part
of it's yeah part of it is is tied to risk so some of that the trends we're
seeing is people moving to the cloud and and why is that a trend well part of
it's that it allows them to not necessarily worry as much about their
and on-premise infrastructure they might maintain some type of small footprint
and that's perfectly okay but part of it is when it's on-premise then you got to
worry about making sure that it gets updated maintain if it if it if it goes
down or your power goes out in your building and yeah the UPS helped you
power it down safely but a physical person has to go and go turn it back on
or address it or put hands on it and if you don't have that internal staff you're
calling someone like CIT to come in and give you a hand with that which we're
more than happy to do but when that stuff is in the cloud you've got those
providers like a Microsoft who has that you know that 99.999 type of uptime so
you feel more confident that okay if something goes down it's a better chance
that it's going to be that somebody that it's our internet that went down this
why we can't get to the cloud that maybe they're doing construction and a line
got cut or you know my local internet providers having some type of hiccup
right now so it's just that confidence of knowing that it's one less thing for
for people to worry about and it's more of a monthly recurring type expenditure
rather than that capital expenditure knowing that okay every X number of
years when a server goes end of life for my host my virtual host is getting old
I got to fork out a whole bunch of money well if it's something that's in the
cloud I just know that I had this monthly service that's a little bit more
predictable and maybe can even scale my customer my company is getting bigger and
I need to increase that okay now I can actually just add that in a sense on the
fly and still have it be this monthly expense rather than hope I got to buy
another virtual host and I got to buy more servers and now I got to have three
hosts and now I have to have a sand they have that shared storage and all those
kind of things so it's it makes things a little bit more scalable a little bit
more peace of mind so that's kind of the trend and should that be the trend
absolutely I mean there are there are certainly are cases where you might want
to keep something on premise depending on the nature of your business but yes
moving things to the cloud where it makes sense it should absolutely be that
be one of those trends others being and I'm sure some of the cyber security
team at CIT has talked about this too things like zero trust and things like
kind of getting rid of that traditional active directory because those are the
types of things that have been those most commonly targeted things by by
threat actors right once I get in I can start moving laterally I can get
credentials well if we implement a solution where yes I know you're on the
same domain as me but I'm just not going to trust you so that way it keeps
anything moving across the network and we're moving to those more secure type
solutions too so things that are cloud based things that kind of move away from
that traditional active directory type solution and of course keeping things
like MFA in the mix there too we always want to have that usually usually the
biggest ones are just making sure that you've got MFA and you've got some type
of backup those the two big ones that I'm sure you've heard and a Todd our COO
and a director cyber security talking about left right and center and they're
and they're right because those are the most simple things that can help you if
heaven forbid there is some type of what one it could protect you from an
incentive something were to happen that's the best way for you to get back up and
running in the shortest amount of time is just having those those things in place
and then of course you start to build from there as you get more mature down
the road so those those are the trends and those really should be the trends
but of course is that going to change who knows maybe next year there's some new
thing that the threat actors are targeting and we have to be flexible
and really you know find out what that next solution is for people because
it's changing it's like I kind of liken it to buying a car as soon as you buy the
newest model it's you know within within a couple years it's obsolete and
nobody makes it anymore and now there's this new one that's got all the new
tools and an IT can really be that's that same way too what's the most you know
the biggest thing now might not be the biggest thing in three years and as soon
as you find a way to block threat actors they're figured in a way to try to get
around it so it's just it's that constant being on the forefront and
reevaluating and reevaluating and looking ahead and see what's going on out there
that that helps people stay ahead of it and that's one of things we can help
with at CIT whether you have strategic engagement on your account specifically
or not but those are the things that we can help with.
Definitely I love it this is thank you so much for joining us this is so
interesting because you've said so many things that we have heard before but in
a different way like you're looking at the playing field as a whole so I love
listening to you kind of talk about how all these pieces fit together so thank
you again for joining us today. Sure happy to do it. If you liked this podcast
please like subscribe if you have a question or you'd like to get in contact
with Andy please reach out to us at info at CIT-net.com or head out to our
website CIT-net.com slash podcast and we'll be back next week with an all-new episode.