Guest Blog: Gold Cloud Partner, Acrodex, Shares their IUR success story

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Internal Use Rights are the free Software benefits that MAPS, Silver and Gold Partners receive as part of their MPN Benefits. Acrodex , a Gold Cloud Competency partner shares some insight's on how activating and using their IUR has helped them grow their organization

The Microsoft IUR program is invaluable for partners who are committed to growing and evolving their Microsoft business. To maximize the benefits of the IUR program, partners have to ensure that all aspects of their business utilize Microsoft platform products for their day-to-day IT requirements. It is also essential that partners share their IT and solution roadmaps, and upcoming plans internally, to ensure that the entire organization is aware of the latest product releases and new paradigms. The IUR program enables modernization of the partner’s IT environment and indirectly results in productivity and staff retention benefits. Here are some of the benefits we have received through using our IUR:

 

 To the Customer:

  • Being able to show the customer that we use it and how we use it greatly aids in:
  • our credibility/technical know-how with the customer because we use what we sell and can speak to challenges the customer may have and how we have overcome them in our implementation
  • Sales, Pre-Sales, Architects and Executives were among the early adopters of O365
  • helping the customer manage their apprehension/concerns about new or different technologies than they are accustomed to

 For Acrodex as an organization:

 Standardize our IT environment

    • Acrodex leverages the products in the IUR program that we use to support our internal infrastructure / data centre environment as well as the desktop environment. To-date, Acrodex IT compute environment is 100% enabled by Microsoft products. This ensures standardization across the organization – Office suite for the desktop environment, Windows as the O/S, SQL Server as the D/B platform, SharePoint On-Prem for Document Management, etc., SharePoint for Project teams and internal business processes. Usage remotely for offsite teams and project teams has reduced need for VPN and other secure access methods. Utilizing SharePoint has also supported document version control. We also use InfoPath forms in workflows to help with Microsoft Licensing for EA's. 
    • CRM On-line has been deployed organization-wide for Pipeline reporting, Forecasting, Management of Sales Activities, Contact Management, sharing of opportunities with Vendors for example, PSX    
    • MDOP used to manage roaming profiles  

Gain an understanding and confidence in the “new IT paradigm” and the cloud consumption models.  

  • O365 has been deployed to a pilot team of 90 users (sales staff, sales support staff, marketing team, professional services team & selected management staff with multiple profiles). This pilot project has provided hands-on experience in deploying and support O365 internally and has also enabled the pilot team to deploy Office 365 on up-to 5 devices. Remote usage of office applications has been helpful for offsite productivity. Internal usage of O365 has also assisted our team in sharing our experiences with our clients.
  • Azure – Acrodex’s 18 month IT roadmap will leverage Azure / STORSIMPLE to transition 80% of our current workloads residing with Pivot to the Microsoft Cloud
  • Acrodex has many active uses as well as projects begun to utilize Azure.
  • Acrodex has moved development servers for internal application for testing and development.
  • We have accounts within our subscription to train and demonstrate usage and set up.
  • Acrodex has implemented STORSIMPLE device and has group of pilot user whom home drives are on the device.

 Managing our customers and pipeline

    • Acrodex transitioned to CRM On-line in 2011 from SalesForce.
    • We were one of the first Canadian organizations that successfully migrated our SalesForce data to CRM.
    • To-date, we have built add-ons for alerts, escalations, custom reports, auto-number generation for opportunity management and PSX management

 

Savings from a capital expenditure perspective  

    • reduction of CAPEX needed to run our business
    • the peace of mind relating to the predictability and consistency of costs/versioning/asset management, etc. for Microsoft licensing

 

 Efficiency and Productivity benefits

    • Remote users see a reduced requirement to travel as they can take basic and intermediate internal and customer meetings via Skype for Business.
    • Managing our assets and software distribution
    • Currently using SCCM for internal software distribution and reports. 
    • Developed an add-on tool for SCCM to manage and reconcile license keys to track software assets deployed

  • Small groups of advanced users increasing productivity by using IUR tools and establishing best practices:

  • SharePoint/InfoPath workflows
  • Field Customization of CRM On-line
  • Reporting tools out of CRM On-line
  • Skype for Business Whiteboard

 

Build Depth and Scale for our Services Offering

    • Leverage the technical investment in our delivery team to grow our services business and further reduce costs (knowledge transfer, resource sharing for deployment/support/resolutions)  
    • Set-up of a Professional Services Lab to provide an environment for technical staff to grow product know-how, certification, etc.   

 

Build IP and solutions that differentiate us

    • The Acrodex SCCM team has developed an SCCM add-on product to track “last used” instances of software deployed through the use of a software license key repository. This IP streamlines the “true-up” processes for our EA customers that have deployed SCCM for software distribution and packaging. 
    • Having the capability to test-run upcoming products, for example: the Acrodex Cloud team is building solution bundles for cloud consumption (Productivity as a service, Data recovery as a service, Device management as a service)  
    • Currently working on the set-up of an Hyper-V/SCCM environment with the Azure tenant to showcase Cloud Portals for subscription management, move VMS, etc.

 It's clear from Acrodex, and many of our partners, that using the Internal Use Right benefits they receive, as a Microsoft Partner, are invaluable. Let us show you how to use yours today:

Here are step-by-step activation guides for

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