Stambaugh Ness Builds Business and Saves Time with Voleer

Taylor Mercedes is head of Strategic Advisory Services at Stambaugh Ness, a professional services firm serving clients nationally with a strategic focus on the architecture and engineering, professional services, construction and real estate, and manufacturing industries. She identifies strategic vendor partnerships to meet the objectives of Stambaugh Ness clients and help them build and secure their businesses.

Taylor learned about Voleer assessments when talking to her BitTitan representative about better ways to evaluate Microsoft 365 environments. After only a short period of time using the assessments, they’re making the difference in the introduction of a new security product for the firm, and they’re cutting time and increasing accuracy for critical migrations.

Voleer drives new product introduction

“Earlier this year, we developed a new managed-services product for our existing customers called Microsoft 365 Security Hardening,” said Taylor. “We proposed the package to a few customers, but they didn’t bite.”

It seems Stambaugh Ness clients rarely know where to start in addressing their cloud security. They often react to a specific incident, like failed login attempts, spam emails, hacks, or issues with multi-factor authentication. Taylor and her team wanted to be more holistic about addressing client security. But first, she had to get them to understand the benefit of being proactive in evaluating their cyber security landscape.

“We now use the Voleer Security Report to drive conversations with our clients and help them see the benefits of our security product,” said Taylor. Stambaugh Ness charges a fee for the assessment, and Security Hardening is an add-on to the managed service contract. This means Voleer is helping create both project as well as recurring revenue while adding value to client relationships.

From tedious and manual to quick and automated

Before Voleer, Taylor had processes for assessing a client’s Microsoft 365 environment, but they were time-consuming and rarely provided a complete picture.

“The process consisted of a checklist of information that I needed to manually track down and document on spreadsheets,” explained Taylor. “When I learned about Voleer, I was working on a project for a 150-person firm and already had 5 hours into it just gathering the data. Now, I can run the assessment in a fraction of the time, then I do minor clean-up and branding. The result is a tailored report to show the client.”

The real value is the thoroughness of the report. Rather than spending time on manual data gathering, and worrying that they may miss something, Taylor and her team are putting their time into analysis and consulting – using Voleer reports to develop more targeted strategies for their clients.

Reports that show the true picture

Voleer assessments give a holistic picture of the client environment, and they’re very customizable. Previously, Stambaugh Ness had to talk about security in high-level terms, mostly focusing on common issues that impact similar companies. Now, Taylor has the data to make specific recommendations and help clients focus their decision making.

“We use the Voleer Security Report to highlight issues they need to pay attention to, and we walk them through it page by page,” said Taylor.

Presenting security reports has been eye-opening for Stambaugh Ness clients and they create a sense of urgency. This gives Taylor and her team an opportunity to define specific priorities and next steps. 

“Well, I have had clients worry that the information in the Voleer assessment might cause panic internally,” said Taylor. “I reassure them that while security hardening is urgent, it’s incredibly important and we now have the information we need to make an actionable plan that’s tailored to their environment.”

Faster, more accurate migration scoping

Stambaugh Ness also uses the Microsoft 365 Tenant Migration Assessment to scope complex migration projects in order to save time and accurately predict costs. 

“We do a lot of migrations for our government clients, moving them from the commercial cloud to the government cloud,” said Taylor. “The Voleer Tenant Assessment has been a real game changer.”

When migrating from the commercial cloud to the government cloud, the team at Stambaugh Ness is required to copy everything, including every setting. So it’s critical to know the environment in full detail. When this was done manually, the migration team would end up with a lot of cleanup after the project was complete. Sometimes users would be asking about missing items for weeks. The team now uses Voleer to scope the project and figure out how much time it will take.

Keeping track of every detail for a smooth migration

“In the past, it would take 3-4 hours to document a client’s environment for a migration project, and even then we knew we were missing out on some of the details,” said Taylor. “This report does it all for us. All we have to do is click and run the report.”

The Stambaugh Ness migration team has also eliminated duplicate work. Previously, the project lead would poke around in the tenant while scoping the project in order to get an idea of what they were dealing with. Then, when the project was awarded, they would spend more time looking into the tenant to plan the migration. Now a single assessment provides all the information they need.

“Costing migration projects is much easier and more accurate. We no longer have to make assumptions based on our experience – we get a better estimate from the beginning,” said Taylor.

Taylor is looking forward to trying additional automations and assessments, but for now she’s pretty excited about the efficiencies and business growth that’s come as a result of their Voleer subscription.

Find out how Voleer adds efficiency and insights for ITSPs and MSPs. Contact us to learn more about solutions from Voleer.

More posts about Migration