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For years, Brad Bell added value for IT customers by working in the thick of their day-to-day managed services needs.
Now, instead of working as intensely in the business, his role has evolved to work on the business for Workplace by Direct.
“My role has evolved into developing and maintaining scalable, secure, efficient system architecture,” said Bell, who has spent more than 20 years at the company that formerly was Workplace I.T. Management.
“I’m reporting and analyzing analytics to provide that information to our business leads so they can make sound business decisions.”
Every company has lots of platforms, and a business architect ensures that they’re working together to give you the optimal information needed to run the operation, he explained.
“At Direct, that allows us to define our standards and best practices, both internally and for our customers.”
Bell’s enhanced architectural work “really helps us build environments that are more stable and secure,” company founder and CEO Paul Zweifel said. “That means fewer issues and better performance for the customers we support”
Essentially, Bell’s insights help Workplace by Direct and the broader Direct organization succeed.
“The value comes in understanding our business from start to finish,” he added. “I know all the customers, so I’m able to understand their needs, and then internally, it’s really about managing data. You might have gut feelings as a leader, but that’s only part of the story. You need data to drive your decision-making.”
From a leadership perspective, “when you can trust the data, the insights get cleaner and the recommendations get smarter, and that helps our customers make decisions with a lot more confidence,” Zweifel added.
Bell recently was invited to share his industry insight at the premier global event for managed services providers. IT Nation Global Connect featured him on a panel involving Direct’s journey to take its line of business applications to the cloud.
“The event draws about 4,000 business leaders in our space, and we’re an industry that shares our processes and best practices,” Bell said.
“Being part of IT Nation helps us stay plugged into what other providers are doing and what’s changing in the industry, and we’re able to bring those ideas and efficiencies back to our clients.”
The focus of his panel “was to help companies in our industry take the leap in moving to cloud,” he said. “Even though it’s been around for a while, people still get nervous about it, but there are benefits in terms of features and functionality.”
While there’s fear of the unknown, “if you do due diligence and contact other companies that have gone to the cloud with that application and do your own research, it can be a nonissue. You fear the experience until you’ve gone through it, so it was helpful for me to take our experience and share it with others. I wish there had been a panel like this when we did it years ago.”
The feedback was positive, he added.
“I had people come up to me and thank me for the information and the message about not fearing change,” Bell said. “One attendee told me he was excited to go do it after hearing from me, so I felt like there was an impact.”
Participating in the event “keeps our team ahead of industry best practices,” Zweifel added. “That allows us to bring new efficiencies and innovations back to Direct and our clients.”
The takeaways from IT Nation Global Connect also have been valuable back at Direct over the years, Bell agreed.
“When we’re networking, we talk with other managed service providers who are larger than we are and have gone through challenges I can foresee in the next one to two years,” he said. “When we first went to IT Nation eight or nine years ago, we had more than 100 customers and 25 employees, so our challenge was helping new employees get to learn customers.”
The business addressed it by dividing the team into smaller units focused on specific customers, he said.
“That way, externally, our customers get to know our team and our team all knew the customers by name and their families,” Bell said. “Our efficiency went up, and our customer service went up, so it’s all about learning how to adapt to change in your business.”
To see how Workplace by Direct can put its expertise to work for your business, reach out here.
