Author Archives: Megan Carnes

Businesses are rarely successful without the ones steering the ship having the ability to make great decisions. Whether it’s managing your workforce, supporting your customers, or procuring the right equipment to best facilitate productivity, good decision making will be at the heart of any organization’s success. Let’s examine how you can make better decisions as they pertain to your technology solutions.

The most important part of procuring any new technology solution is how it will impact your workflow. With so many technology solutions out there, you need to implement those that make sense for your business. To ensure this happens, consider the following four suggestions.

Consider Alternative Costs

Implementing a new solution is wonderful, but only if your staff know how to use it. If you try to implement a solution to enhance productivity, you’ll need to also consider the return on investment in terms of how much time you’ll have to spend getting your team on board with it, along with the time spent training and testing your staff on its use. It might not seem like an immediately apparent cost, but we assure you it is a very real one.

Involve the Right People In the Discussion

When discussing new technology implementations, it’s important to get the perspectives of the people who will be using it. This might mean asking your staff, particularly experienced employees, or other stakeholders and management. With these valuable perspectives on your side, you’ll be able to make the most educated decisions possible about any new technology implementation project.

Choose Your Partners Carefully

When it comes time to add new solutions to your infrastructure and processes, you’ll want to work with businesses that have your company’s best interests at heart. In other words, the vendors you work with should be invested in your company’s success rather than just looking for their next big sale.

Remember to Set Achievable Goals

Without realistic and achievable goals, any new technology implementation will be doomed to failure. Big changes might be a big deal for your business, but only if they have direction. Otherwise, you could wind up being mired in the processes that drag your business down and prevent it from making any forward progress. With clear objectives and goals, you’ll be able to optimize your chances for success.

When it comes to implementing new technology, it’s best to leave this important task to professional technicians with years of experience and expertise. Thrive can consult your organization on the best path forward. Contact Thrive to learn more about what we can do for your company.

Phishing attacks are serious business, so it is important that your team members know what they are, for one, and know how to spot them. To facilitate this, let’s review the signs of a phishing attack—or ideally, a phishing attempt (because by spotting it, you’re more able to stop it).

First, let’s quickly touch on what constitutes a phishing attack.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is a horribly common form of cyberattack that is used by cybercriminals to accomplish a variety of goals, whether it’s gaining access to a system or stealing data from your team members. Basically, by posing as a trusted party and communicating with your team members, the responsible cybercriminal leverages the imperfect human element to sidestep your cybersecurity.

Phishing, while perhaps most well-known as an email-centric threat, can take place in many forms and formats. In addition to phishing emails—which themselves come in numerous forms—phishing attacks can also come in the form of SMS messages, phone calls, and effectively any other means of communication.

This makes it crucial that your team is prepared to deal with these attempts—capable of spotting them and properly reacting by reporting their suspicions to your IT resource.

To this end, let’s go over a few ways that your team members can potentially catch a phishing attack before they fall for it.

Signs That a Phishing Attack is Targeting You

There are numerous signs that a message could potentially be a disguised phishing attack. Here’s a basic list of warning signs:

• A tone that doesn’t match the supposed sender
• Misspellings and other discrepancies in key details, like email addresses, domain names, and links
• Out-of-the-blue messages
• Egregious spelling and grammar errors
• Unexpected or out-of-context attachments
• Excessive urgency behind, or open threats as a consequence of, not complying with the message
• Ambiguous messages that motivate the recipient to investigate
• Unusual requests, or requests for explicitly sensitive information

It’s important that your team is aware of these warning signs and actively keeps them in mind when dealing with any business communications.

Thrive Is Here to Help Keep Your Team Safe!

Reach out to us to find out how we can assist you in maintaining your business’ security against threats of various kinds, including phishing attempts. CONTACT THRIVE today.

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive Employee is Jenny Brackett, Client Success Manager.

Jenny describes working as a Client Success Manager at Thrive a bit like New England weather – you never know what the day will bring! The CSM team works hard to stay informed, build relationships, reduce churn and keeping our clients working and happy all in a very fast environment. Technology waits for no man.. or woman!

Jenny lives in Gorham, ME – just a few minutes outside of Portland. Now that her two boys are almost grown, she has a bit more time to spend tending to her flower gardens when the weather is fine. When the weather doesn’t cooperate – Jenny always has a project going – much to her husband’s dismay!

Hi Jenny! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive?

I came to Thrive by way of one of the first acquisitions back in 2018. Growing up and working in Vacationland (aka Maine!), I learned valuable customer service skills. You want to keep those good spenders… I mean clients, coming back!

Where did you go to school or get training?

Life! I haven’t quite decided what I want to do when I grow up yet. Anything and everything I have learned about technology has been patiently and freely explained to me by some incredible co-workers.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

That all depends on who’s behaving themselves that day… my colleagues, or the clients!

Any recent projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

It’s an exciting time to be working at Thrive, from bringing new CSM’s into the fold, new companies, new clients – my coffee cup is always full trying to keep up!

Are you interested in learning more about Thrive? Click here!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news, and continue checking our blog for more in our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” series. Until next time…

Thrive is thrilled to announce that its Managed Endpoint Security and Response solution has won the 2022 Fortress Cyber Security Awards for the Endpoint Detection product category.

This distinguished awards program, sponsored by The Business Intelligence Group, identifies and rewards the world’s leading companies and products that are working to keep our data and electronic assets safe from the increasing threat of cybersecurity attacks.

Thrive’s Endpoint Detection (Managed Endpoint Security and Response) service provides proactive, real-time, fully-automated security with orchestrated incident response across all devices covering current and legacy operating systems. Powered by Fortinet’s FortiEDR platform, this unique service is the ONLY endpoint protection platform that delivers real-time threat protection for both pre- and post-infection.

Thrive is honored to have our expert and certified security professionals recognized for their around the clock work to protect our customers’ mission-critical infrastructure using a tailored and holistic end security solution.

“We are so proud to name Thrive as a winner in the 2022 Fortress Cyber Security Awards program,” said Maria Jimenez, Chief Nominations Officer, Business Intelligence Group. “As our society continues to evolve and become more reliant on networks and data, companies like Thrive are critical at providing the protection and trust consumers demand.”

Congratulations to all the winners of the 2022 Fortress Cyber Security Awards!

Thrive once again has made the CRN Annual Solution Provider 500 List! CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, issues a list each year ranking North America’s largest solution providers by revenue and serves as the gold standard for recognizing some of the channel’s most successful companies.

Thrive has been named to this prestigious list for six consecutive years and in 2022 climbed to #172 – up 75 spots from 2021.

This list is the benchmark for the top technology integrators, strategic service providers and IT consulting firms. It is an invaluable resource for technology vendors looking to partner with top-performing IT solution providers.

The companies on this year’s list represent a combined revenue of $434 billion, which attests to their success, impact and influence while staying ahead of rapidly changing market and technology demands.

Congratulations to all the companies receiving recognition on this year’s list!

CRN’s 2022 Solution Provider 500 list is available online at www.CRN.com/SP500 and a sample from the list will be featured in the June issue of CRN.

We did it again! Thrive has made The Boston Business Journal’s exclusive 2022 Fast 50 list, which represents the 50 fastest-growing private companies in Massachusetts. The Fast 50 companies are selected and ranked based on a formula that counts revenue growth from 2018 to 2021. 

Thrive’s NextGen Technology Platform is designed to optimize IT business application performance via a secure and redundant Cloud-based infrastructure. Thrive’s cutting-edge approach creates a superior, day-to-day IT experience for businesses in Boston and beyond. The platform helps manage your Cloud, Collaboration, Cybersecurity, Disaster Recovery, Digital Transformation, Global Network Management and Traditional Managed Services capabilities at any time and from anywhere.

The rankings were announced on May 19th at a ceremony in Boston. A Fast 50 special publication is scheduled to run in the May 20th weekly edition of the Business Journal and online.

Congratulations to all this year’s winners!

For the complete list of 2022 Fast 50 companies, visit The Boston Business Journal’s website here.

Thrive will now be able to identify cyberattacks more quickly and accurately, thus generating significant improvements overall in client threat responses.

FOXBOROUGH, MASS. – May 19, 2022 – Thrive, one of the leading Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) in the world, has made a significant investment to upgrade their 24x7x365 eyes-on-glass Security Operation Center (SOC) by integrating a Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) engine. The SOAR capabilities will enable the Thrive global security team to better navigate today’s complex, risk-laden environment for clients via tool aggregation and coordinated response, unified operations, reduced alert fatigue, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will result in a significant reduction of incident response times for client threats and provide higher quality information for the Thrive SOC to combat intricate cyber risks in real time.

By 2025, the amount lost to cyber theft is expected to reach $10.5 trillion annually, which is the single greatest transfer of wealth in history, according to a report from AT&T. These glaring statistics indicate why cybersecurity has become imperative in the world of commerce.

“Cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities are constantly multiplying, due to not only more sophisticated social engineering but also a rise in micro-ransomware incidents,” said Mike Gray, CTO of Thrive. “That means vigilance against attacks of all kinds must also evolve. Incorporating a SOAR into our robust global security operations unit will allow Thrive clients to have a stronger defense system in place against cybersecurity attacks and enable our team to respond more expeditiously to any issues should they arise.”

Thrive’s integrated managed cybersecurity solutions provide a proactive and expert approach to security management for identifying and remediating security issues. Powered by next-gen technology, proven frameworks and service-driven experts, Thrive’s unified cybersecurity platform enables Thrive’s 24x7x365 SOC to automatically address critical security issues without client intervention. By creating a stress-free experience that solves for the technical complexity and talent shortage mid-market enterprises face, Thrive’s cybersecurity solutions fortify the digital transformation initiatives that propel business growth.

Please join us on Thursday, May 19 at 11:00 AM ET / 4:00 PM UK for a webinar on SOAR hosted by security experts Michael Gray, CTO at Thrive and Jonathan Nguyen-Duy, VP of Field CISO at Fortinet as they define and discuss SOAR services. Register here

For more information about Thrive, visit thrivenextgen.com.

About Thrive

Thrive is a leading provider of NextGen managed services designed to drive business outcomes through application enablement and optimization. The company’s Thrive5 Methodology utilizes a unique combination of its Application Performance Platform and strategic services to ensure each business application takes advantage of technology that enables peak performance, scale, and the highest level of security. For more information, thrivenextgen.com.

Thrive: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Patrick Reilly

Zer0 to 5ive, for Thrive

732-687-4683 | patrick@0to5.com

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive Employee is Brenda Marrero. Brenda is a Client Success Manager at Thrive.

Brenda provides building a positive, long-lasting relationship with Thrive clients as the organizational point of contact. She ensures that the clients remain satisfied with the services we provide and help them through any issues, billing concerns, and other related account issues that may arise.

Brenda also onboards new clients, essentially serving as their initial point of contact with the company, and providing initial training on how to use the features of our Client Portal.

Brenda lives in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania which is in the Philadelphia metro area with her husband, son and two dogs! She is originally from the New York City metro area and jokes that she is a New Yorker, living in Philadelphia, and working in New Jersey.

Hi Brenda! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive? 

I started my career as an Electrical Manufacturers Representative in the New York City metro area. After several years in the electrical industry, and several more years of experience in client management and success, I moved on to having my own start-up company in the IoT (Internet of Things- aka smart home) industry.

Along with that, I was also a professional singer for 15 years in the New York City metro area before moving to Pennsylvania. Upon moving to the Keystone state, I began working for Apex IT Group, which was eventually acquired by Thrive in 2021.

Where did you go to school or get training? 

I attended Suffolk County Community College to earn a degree in chemical dependency counseling. Obviously, life took me in a different direction career-wise. I have been looking into furthering my education and plan to attend Penn State World Campus (hopefully in the fall) to earn my BA in Business.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

It is so cliché but what I most enjoy about working at Thrive is the people and culture. I feel that from the top down there is genuine care and concern for the team. Like good teammates, everyone is willing to lend a hand to help the team be successful. It is a very different, and pleasant experience!

Any recent exciting projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

A large focus for the CSM team is helping clients adopt the portal. Our portal is built in collaboration with our Service Delivery Department and is the fastest and most efficient path to problem resolution. With value add focusing on the overall client experience, the Thrive Client Portal delivers better service with less time and effort, and we are continually adding new features based on feedback from our clients!

Tell us what you like to do in your free time?

I still love to sing, and pre-pandemic, my husband and I used to go to live music shows often. I still like to do my songbird thing every now and then, sitting in as a featured guest with some musicians.

I have fallen in love with Philadelphia and enjoy visiting new places and seeing new things in this diverse city. I also love to spend time with my friends and family, which include my husband (Eric), our 4-year-old son (Liam), my mother-in-law (JoAnn), my mother + her husband (Viera & Joe), and our 2 Staffordshire Terriers (Skye and Lennox II).

Are you interested in learning more about Thrive? Click here!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news, and continue checking our blog for more in our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” series. Until next time…

Welcome back to another installment of our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” blog series.

Our featured Thrive Employee is Phil Cotterill. Phil is the Sales Director in the UK at Thrive.

Phil has been in the IT industry for over 30 years. In his role of Sales Director, he is responsible for the sales strategy for the European Operation at Thrive. The UK has three divisions currently: Enterprise Business, Managed Services and Channel Operation. Phil’s team is currently building out a new Managed Services business that looks at the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME marketplace).

Phil lives in Northampton with his wife and children. In his free time, you can catch him road biking, watching Formula 1 or playing Rugby!

Hi Phil! Can you tell us about your background and how you came to Thrive? 

I have been in the IT industry for more than 30 years. I started my sales career at British Telecom. They are the largest connectivity carrier in the UK. I worked there for 19 years in various sales and sales management roles, my last role was managing British Telecom’s indirect channel. In 2008 I joined ONI to help build the business as well as ONI’s carrier services operation and stayed with ONI for 14 years. Then ONI was acquired by Thrive last May and I became a member of the Thrive team.

Where did you go to school or get training? 

I went to school in the UK and following this I joined British Telecom, where I completed numerous sales, marketing and sales management courses including a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Business and Finance and a Certificate in Marketing (CIM) from the Manchester Business School.

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?

100% the people are what I enjoy most about working for Thrive. Both the US and the UK teams are so helpful, encouraging and have such high energy. It’s amazing to work with such talented people who have the same drive and commitment to helping our customers.

The second thing I enjoy most about working for Thrive is the role itself has a lot of variety to it. No two days are the same and each day has its different challenges and opportunities.

The last thing I like about working here is working with our customers. I love helping organizations deliver their strategies, overcome challenges and becoming a true business partner through the use of our IT services. It’s extremely rewarding.

Any recent exciting projects at Thrive that you can tell us about?

In the UK, we are going through an enormous change program at the moment. The two new parts of our business is building out the MSP business and building out the Channel Operations. Basically, creating our new division and operation in the UK.

Are you interested in learning more about Thrive? Click here!

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest news, and continue checking our blog for more in our “Thrive Employee Spotlight” series. Until next time…