Tag Archives: Managed Services

News

Arrow partners with POPX to automate operations and integrate acquisitions

Arrow Business Communications, one of the UK’s leading independent providers of collaboration, connectivity, cyber security and cloud and infrastructure managed services, has partnered with POPX to implement their fully managed MSP Platform to transform operations, service and business management functions.

For Arrow to continue its growth trajectory and focus on customer experience, a strategic decision was made to invest in the latest service management technology aimed at enhancing both employee and customer experiences. Following an intense period of growth through acquisition, the business imperative pivoted to ensure all operations in the acquired businesses consolidate into a single standard.

The initiative labelled “One Customer Experience. One Platform” will give Arrow the advantageous capability to quickly integrate acquired businesses onto a future-proofed service management solution. After narrowing down the technology choice to ServiceNow, Arrow selected POPX as the ideal option to de-risk their investment with a fully managed service, run by skilled ServiceNow specialists with experience in the managed services sector.

Jason Briscoe, Chief Operating Officer at Arrow said: “Too much work in our industry is delivered by committed people using manual, isolated processes, and aged tooling. All this leads to frustration, ineffective delivery, inflated overheads, greater risk, and an inability to manage cost and quality, all at the expense of customer satisfaction. As we acquire new businesses, and to help realise the maximum value from those investments, we will integrate them onto the very best service management platform available. In this way, we aim to turn the operations of every part of our growing business into scalable value-creation machines.”

The POPX MSP Platform is designed to accelerate and de-risk digital transformation for Smart MSPs by enabling them to onboard ServiceNow faster, with greater transparency on cost, timescales and added value. The MSP Platform allows tech service providers to consolidate applications, integrate internal and supplier systems, and deliver service automation for key processes. The fully managed service from POPX includes all integrations, development and enhancements, upgrades and maintenance, as well as training and the day-to-day support of running a complex technology.

Richard Burke, CEO at Arrow commented: “Service value and customer experience runs through our DNA and that’s why we wanted to enhance our service proposition to truly deliver on our promises today but ensure we have a platform that scales for tomorrow. With POPX, we can integrate previous and future acquisitions onto one system, resulting in efficient operations that deliver an outstanding customer experience.”

Martin Ford, CEO at POPX said: “Arrow has successfully grown at speed over recent years and as a result, they have been on an extensive digital transformation journey. We’re delighted to be part of that team, operating as a long-term partner that will guide and support them through this next phase of growth and beyond.”

Acquisitions & Partnerships, News

Cerillion expands Norlys partnership with managed services engagement

London, 21st July 2022 – Cerillion (AIM: CER), an innovator in digital monetisation and customer management solutions, today announced a new managed services contract with Norlys, Denmark’s largest energy and telecommunications group. Following the launch of Cerillion’s wholesale and retail BSS/OSS solutions for Norlys’ Infrastructure Owner (IO) and Service Provider (SP) divisions, this managed services engagement is intended to help Norlys to achieve significant economies of scale by leveraging Cerillion’s centre of excellence to support all of its back-office operations.

In a market with structural separation between infrastructure owners and service providers, Norlys operates two distinct business units that are interconnected through the national wholesale platform provided by OpenNet. Working with the Cerillion Managed Service, Norlys is increasing its operational efficiency by gaining access to a dedicated team of BSS/OSS experts to run both its wholesale and retail operations, as well as helping to launch new products and offers quickly using best practices.

“In an open and highly competitive broadband market, operational efficiency and business agility are absolutely crucial to our on-going success,” said Morten Bilgrav Mathiasen, CIO at Norlys. “By centralising our operations with the Cerillion Managed Service, we are allowing our own staff to focus on growth, whilst leveraging the strength of Cerillion’s team to improve overall productivity and ensure the business scales efficiently.”

“We are delighted to welcome Norlys to our growing family of managed services customers, helping them to achieve significant operational savings as well as accelerating time to market for new services,” commented Louis Hall, CEO, Cerillion plc. “The combination of our pre-integrated BSS/OSS suite and expert managed services team will provide Norlys with a significant competitive advantage and we look forward to continuing our partnership as they grow.”

CEO & Founder Stories, News

Logicalis appoints Damian Skendrovic as EMEA CEO

London, 15th March 2022: Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed service provider, is pleased to announce the appointment of Damian Skendrovic to the role of CEO for the EMEA region, as of 8th March 2022.

As EMEA CEO, Damian will work to scale Logicalis’ offering across the EMEA region, utilising the teams’ local expertise, whilst enhancing Logicalis’ position in the market.

Skendrovic joins Logicalis from NTT where he was Executive Vice President and CEO of Managed Services. During his time at NTT, he built their global managed services business to over $1 billion in revenues through a combination of mergers and acquisitions and organic growth.

Skendrovic’s 25 years of experience and knowledge in developing and scaling managed services businesses will allow Logicalis to expand its managed service offering across EMEA, building on its existing European presence.

On his appointment, Damian Skendrovic comments: “I’m excited to be joining Logicalis at such a pivotal time for both the company and the wider industry. Businesses are increasingly reliant on technology solutions that enable agility and flexibility to respond to sudden changes in the digital economy. I look forward to working with Logicalis teams across the region to scale our managed services offering and help customers get the most from our solutions.”

On the announcement, Bob Bailkoski, CEO of Logicalis Group said, “We are delighted to welcome Damian on board. His success in his previous role of scaling managed services businesses lends itself well to Logicalis’ ambition to grow its managed services offering. His skills will be an asset to the EMEA business as he works with our teams across the region to develop and improve our offering for customers.”

News

SaaS Alerts Announces $3 Million Financing Round; Allocates 500K of Investment Opportunity to MSPs

Latest funding round led by channel industry veterans now offers MSPs investment opportunity in fast-growth cybersecurity company purpose-built for IT service providers

 

SaaS Alerts, the cybersecurity company purpose-built for MSPs to protect and monetize their customers’ core business SaaS applications, announced today that it recently opened a new round of funding to capitalize on its exponential growth and has introduced an industry-first MSP investment opportunity.

SaaS Alerts unifies the monitoring and alerting of core business SaaS applications, including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Dropbox, Slack and others. The MSP-exclusive platform centralizes security notifications and alerts, discovers abnormal user behavior and potential data loss/leakage risks, resolves gaps in management policies and serves as a powerful sales tool by providing instant SaaS security assessments.

This latest round will raise up to $3M of growth capital to expand SaaS Alerts’ sales and marketing efforts and to further its product development to incorporate many of the features requested by its MSP partners. The company has continued to experience rapid growth since its general availability launch in January and now supports over 200 MSPs and 60,000+ end users on the platform.

As with its initial funding round, SaaS Alerts seeks to secure those investors who truly understand the unique challenges and fast evolution of the MSP industry by tapping into the MSP software and IT services community to complete this raise.

David Bellini, a lead investor in this round currently serves as CEO of Password Boss and the CFO at ConnectOn. Previously, he served as President of ConnectWise, a company Bellini co-founded in 1982. Mr. Bellini will also be taking a board seat with SaaS Alerts as part of his consortium’s investment in this round.

The company has allocated up to $500K of the current round specifically for MSPs who are interested in participating.

“Over the years, the MSP community has observed countless software companies being funded by both venture and private equity and has witnessed many of those deals resulting in strong financial exits,” said Jim Lippie, CEO of SaaS Alerts. “Meanwhile, the MSPs who have given their hard-earned dollars and valuable feedback to help fuel some of those companies have received little in return for their contributions. We’d like to provide those MSPs who believe in solving for the problems and pain-points experienced by the IT services community – and especially those which relate to the growing cybersecurity threat landscape, the opportunity to not only benefit from the SaaS Alerts platform itself, but to also profit from its successful growth by becoming an investor. We feel that providing MSPs the opportunity to grow the company with us and to financially benefit from that is consistent with our goal to become the most MSP-friendly software company in the ecosystem.”

To participate in the current funding round, interested parties need only demonstrate that they either own or work for a Managed IT Service Provider and that they are an accredited investor.

Founding members of Channel Angels, Gerwai Todd and Kevin Blake, will co-lead the investment syndication vehicle on behalf of SaaS Alerts. Those interested in the SaaS Alerts investment opportunity can register for an hour long informational webinar at www.saasalerts.com/invest

“We’re very excited to be working with Channel Angels to bring this investment opportunity to the MSP community. Without a strong partner to lead the syndication, we would not be able to effectively make this opportunity a reality.” added Lippie.

 

About Saas Alerts

SaaS Alerts is the cyber security company purpose built for MSPs to protect and monetize customer core SaaS business applications. SaaS Alerts offers a unified, real-time monitoring platform for MSPs to protect against: data theft, data at risk and bad actors and integrates with the most popular SaaS Applications. Learn more at www.saasalerts.com.

 

About Channel Angels

Channel Angels is a network of accredited angel investors with the mission of funding the next-generation of technology startups that serve small business customers. It is the first angel investor group built entirely from the channel for the channel.