Why we decided to launch the Office 365 online store?

by Guido Marchetti, cloud solutions lead, MJ Flood Technology

We’re a traditional IT company, selling a range of IT services which we wrap around a number of vendor technologies. And like most of the industry, we charge for those services as upfront capital expenditure.

But that’s about to change, with our launch of the country’s first Office 365 online store.  This is the first online store of its kind that combines Office 365 licensing, setup and support services, payable through a low-cost, predictable monthly fee.

Why have we done this?  The answer is simple; our customers want it.

We’ve seen a significant industry shift with software vendors moving from a capex model to software as a service and now hardware vendors are following suit with infrastructure as a service.  Capex payment models are out of vogue.  Customers are demanding opex models, which give them flexibility and protect cash reserves.

And these opex models, typically based on cloud services, also allow customers to scale up and down to suit their operational requirements if the billing platform is monthly (and most are).  Customers ranging from the smallest micro business to the largest enterprise are now migrating the delivery of IT services to these models.

But there’s one element that has thrown a ‘spanner in the works’, so to speak.  And that relates to the services portion of any project.  It’s great being able to buy infrastructure or software as a service, but what about the IT services required to configure all of this?

Well, to overcome this challenge, we’ve taken a leaf or two from the telco book.

We’ve worked with a number of pan-European telcos over the past number of years.  Their raison d’etre is to sell fixed/mobile minutes via monthly billing.  But they’re increasingly moving their business model to full service ICT providers and they’re taking their traditional monthly billing model with them.

This gave us great insight into the customer journey and the engines required to deliver this.  Telcos have clever ways of making costs ‘easier to swallow’ and this approach, together with our recent appointment as a Microsoft CSP (Cloud Services Platform) partner (one of very few on the island of Ireland), gave us the freedom and flexibility to disrupt the market and revolutionise the way in which customers pay for software, hardware and related IT services.

We’ve now created a model that allows customers to pay for their software (in this case Office 365) and their services, as a subscription-based, predictable monthly fee.  It negates the need for upfront investment in IT and commoditises IT service delivery, in the same way customers pay for light, heat and power.  IT services are just another utility and we’ve wrapped everything into a single bundle with a per user fee that can scale up or down, depending on our customers’ requirements.

And it’s all self-service.  Customers can go online, add licenses or purchase additional services, such as premium telephone support to accompany them through their product lifecycle.

We’re the first IT services reseller to have this all-inclusive offer in the market and we are excited about how this model will evolve into the future, as other hardware and software solutions are added.  Watch this space for some more innovative service offerings that are aligned to the new IT model of subscription based transactions.

Evolution not Revolution

Evolution not Revolution

Organisations tasked with social care delivery are under pressure to do more with less and to simultaneously promote innovation in service delivery.  But these objectives are not mutually exclusive.

Better community-based care services can be supported by advances in technology and IT service delivery models based on cloud computing.

On behalf of the MJ Flood Technology and Microsoft teams, I invite you to join us for ‘Evolution not Revolution’, a unique event specifically targeted at the social care delivery sector and designed to introduce you to a new IT service model, addressing the specific issues and challenges you face in supporting services users and staff alike.

Wednesday, 15th June, 2016
10.30am – 3.30pm with lunch
Envisioning Center, Building 3, Microsoft Offices,
Carmenhall Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18 

Agenda

Evolution not Revolution

A Blueprint for Successful IT Service Delivery for the Care Services Sector

10.30am               Arrival and Coffee

11.00am               Introductions and Welcome

11.25am               Cloud First – a New Policy Approach for All?

11.55pm              Mobility and Data Security – a Framework for Secure Identity Management and Data Integrity

12.25pm              Evolution not Revolution – a Hybrid Approach to Cloud

12.55pm              Healthmail – Challenges of Deploying IT in a Healthcare Environment

1.20pm                Break for Lunch

2.15pm                 DR and Business Continuity – Data Protection and Recovery for a Changing World

2.45pm                 Virtual Clients – The Use of Telemedicine in Care Services
Belfast Trust Case Study

3.15pm                 Q & A | Close 

To register, simply complete the form below.