Author Archives: Megan Carnes

In 2025, organizations are racing to adopt AI tools – not just for efficiency, but to fundamentally reshape operations. While gains in productivity are expected, the real surprise lies in the sheer versatility of AI across use cases like customer service, data analysis, and process automation.

One such use case is contact center automation. Depending on the size, companies can receive hundreds, if not thousands, of calls and messages per day. Many of these are repetitive – simple questions that could, in theory, have simple answers. Queries like, “What’s my account balance?” or “Can you explain the increase in my last bill?” require the same set of steps and responses – but have, to date, required a human due to the personal nature of the call and question.

Leading global MSP/MSSP doubles down on its compliance capabilities with latest purchase

Boston, MA, July 8, 2025 – Thrive, a global technology outsourcing provider for cybersecurity, Cloud, and IT managed services, today announced the acquisition of Abacode, a leading Managed Cybersecurity & Compliance Provider (MCCP) based in Tampa, Florida. Abacode specializes in holistic, outcome-driven cybersecurity solutions and governance programs that help businesses transform their cyber risk management strategies and turn compliance challenges into competitive advantages. This acquisition further strengthens Thrive’s compliance solutions and adds to its growing footprint in the Southeast U.S. 

As compliance mandates and cyber threats grow in complexity—including updates to standards like CMMC, changing AI legislation on the international stage, and proposed changes to industry standards like HIPAA—businesses require more strategic and scalable solutions to meet governance and risk requirements. Thrive has always been on the front lines of navigating customers through these challenges. With the acquisition of Abacode, the company is doubling its commitment to enhancing its governance, risk, and compliance offerings to empower mid-market businesses to meet evolving regulatory requirements. Abacode’s unique approach, which integrates cybersecurity and compliance into a single comprehensive program, aligns with Thrive’s mission of providing simplified, yet holistic, security and IT to their customers, eliminating headaches and allowing businesses to focus on what matters most to them.   

“Compliance is a hurdle for many small and mid-sized enterprises, because they simply don’t have the time or resources dedicated to tracking every change that could impact their business,” said Bill McLaughlin, CEO of Thrive. “Abacode’s strong leadership, robust offerings, and MCCP model align with our high-touch, customer-first approach, making them a natural fit for us. With the team at Abacode, Thrive is strongly positioned to help clients manage increasingly stringent cybersecurity regulations.” 

This acquisition—the second of the year for Thrive— builds on the company’s growing focus on its compliance services. Thrive has long supported organizations across various industries— including financial services, healthcare, and government operations— that want to maintain compliance in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The company recently launched its new Compliance Center, filled with unrivaled resources and expertise that educates mid-market businesses on international, federal, state and industry-specific regulations.  

“Joining forces with Thrive allows us to take our mission of delivering measurable business outcomes through cybersecurity and compliance to the next level,” said Michael Ferris, CEO of Abacode. “Thrive has an established reputation for having enterprise-grade infrastructure and global support, offering clients unmatched expertise and scalability. We’re looking forward to being part of this expert delivery and further helping our clients as part of the Thrive team.” 

To learn more about Thrive and its offerings, visit www.thrivenextgen.com. 

About Thrive

Thrive delivers global technology outsourcing for cybersecurity, Cloud, networking, and other complex IT requirements. Thrive’s NextGen platform enables customers to increase business efficiencies through AI, standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI). They accomplish this with advisory services, vCISO, vCIO, consulting, project implementation, solution architects, and a best-in-class subscription-based technology platform. Thrive delivers exceptional high-touch service through its POD approach of subject matter experts and global 24x7x365 SOC, NOC, and centralized services teams. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.   

Contacts

Hannah Johnston

thrive@v2comms.com

From Lender to Licensed Bank

Since its founding as Vida Homeloans in 2016, Vida Bank has steadily grown its footprint across England and Scotland. The company recently achieved a major milestone—becoming a fully licensed bank and launching retail savings products alongside its existing specialist mortgage business. With more than £1 billion in deposits and a team of over 200 employees across 3 offices, the organisation now operates in a highly regulated environment and requires dependable, scalable technology partners to support its continued expansion.

Breaking Away from the Past

Years ago, before engaging with ONI, who was subsequently acquired by Thrive, Vida Bank worked with a managed service provider (MSP) whose quality of support was inconsistent at best. Missed details and poor execution created unacceptable business risks—particularly for a company in the financial sector. David Flashman, Director of Technology, explained, “The incumbent MSP made mistakes that just shouldn’t be made, and those mistakes had direct impacts on uptime and system availability.”

As the bank began exiting its former hosted environment and preparing to move into Microsoft Azure, it needed a partner with the technical depth and regulatory experience to ensure a smooth transition.

A Partnership Built on Trust and Expertise

Having worked with members of the Thrive team in a previous role, Flashman, reconnected with a familiar contact (now their Account Manager) to explore options for networking support. What started as assistance with connectivity and hardware provisioning, quickly grew into a trusted partnership. Thrive played a key role in Vida Bank’s Azure migration, stepping in to manage firewalls, secure cloud connectivity, and bridge gaps between the bank’s various platforms and internal systems.

“We don’t have in-house expertise at the level needed to manage cloud connectivity and firewalls,” he noted. “Thrive helped us build a structured support model that gave us confidence in the migration.”

Supporting Growth in a Regulated World

Since the migration, the bank has experienced increased stability, better uptime, and more professional execution than ever before. Just as importantly, Thrive has helped Vida Bank meet rising regulatory expectations. With consistent monthly reporting, regular service reviews, and clear visibility into support ticket trends, the bank is now able to confidently demonstrate evidence of oversight and compliance—a growing concern under frameworks like the FCA and PRA.

“There’s real consistency in the service reporting, which is good to see,” Flashman said. “It’s becoming more and more important for us as dual-regulated entities to show that our suppliers are delivering appropriately—and that we’re ready to intervene when needed.”

A Relationship That Delivers

The collaboration isn’t just technical—it’s a strong partnership. The Thrive team has proven responsive, dependable, and willing to step up on short notice when issues arise, even outside their typical scope. “We’ve sometimes called in late with urgent needs,” Flashman said, “and they’ve stepped up every time—even if it meant juggling priorities. That’s not something every supplier would do.”

He also credited the team’s ability to learn and align with the bank’s internal processes: “Every business operates differently and Thrive has taken the time to understand how we work. Now when we talk about change, we’re aligned and efficient in how it’s executed.”

Room to Grow, Together

While Vida Bank intentionally maintains a diverse supplier strategy, there is openness to deepening its relationship with Thrive as it brings new business lines to market. “There’s definitely more Thrive can offer,” he acknowledged. “We haven’t fully taken advantage of that yet, but as our needs evolve, there could absolutely be more opportunities to engage.”

With a focus now on growing its mortgage and savings books, the bank is looking to build value—not overhaul its systems. In Thrive, Vida Bank has a partner ready to scale alongside them.

“With a focus now on growing its mortgage and savings books, the bank is looking to build value—not overhaul its systems. In Thrive, Vida Bank has a partner ready to scale alongside them.” – David Flashman, Director of Technology, Vida Bank

About Thrive

Thrive delivers global technology outsourcing for cybersecurity, Cloud, networking, and other complex IT requirements. Thrive’s NextGen platform enables customers to increase business efficiencies through standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI). They accomplish this with advisory services, vCISO, vCIO, consulting, project implementation, solution architects, and a best-in-class subscription-based technology platform. Thrive delivers exceptional high-touch service through its POD approach of subject matter experts and global 24x7x365 SOC, NOC, and centralized services teams. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Oak Harvest Financial Group has spent over 15 years helping pre-retirees and retirees plan their futures with full-service retirement planning, portfolio management, and tax strategies. Since its early days with around 10 employees, the firm has grown to a team of 50 and now manages nearly $1 billion in assets. As their size—and their regulatory oversight—grew, it became clear their IT strategy needed to evolve just as rapidly.

“We moved from regional to federal SEC oversight once we passed $100 million in Assets Under Management (AUM),” said Chris Ayers, Vice President of Operations. “Our previous MSP was great locally, but they just didn’t have the scale or industry specialization to support where we were headed.”

Why Thrive? Proven Experience and Peace of Mind

Ayers, who had long served as Oak Harvest’s unofficial IT lead, was managing growing demands from both regulators and internal stakeholders. What the firm needed was a partner with deep experience in financial services and the ability to proactively manage compliance, cybersecurity, and infrastructure at scale. Thrive brought exactly that.

“From day one, Thrive’s vertical alignment with financial services gave me confidence,” said Ayers. “They actually knew what our Chief Compliance Officer was asking for—they weren’t just Googling things like our previous provider.”

Getting It Done—Exactly as Promised

What impressed Oak Harvest the most was Thrive’s follow-through. From initial onboarding to complex implementations, the team delivered what they promised, when they promised it.

“The biggest thing for me is that they’ve done basically everything they said they would do—in the time they said they’d do it,” Ayers said. That included major initiatives like moving from Dropbox to SharePoint and OneDrive, eliminating $10,000 in annual costs and improving document collaboration. Thrive also led the firm’s migration from an aging on-prem Active Directory server to Microsoft Entra, vastly improving security, reliability, and remote access.

“I told them up front: this office is going to hate change,” Ayers recalled. “But they held our hands through the process. It was a wild success.”

Shifting from Reactive to Proactive IT

Before Thrive, IT was a reactive, piecemeal effort—sometimes leaving the team scrambling to meet new compliance demands. Today, the firm operates with strategic clarity and peace of mind.

“Our CCO sleeps better. I sleep better,” said Ayers. “Just knowing we’re 100 times better prepared for an SEC audit than we were a year ago is huge.”

Even the day-to-day support experience improved dramatically. “I can’t be the go-to for 50 people anymore. Now I point them to Thrive—and I hear nothing but positive feedback about the help desk and the portal.”

More Than Worth the Investment

Yes, moving to a global MSP came with a higher monthly cost—but for Oak Harvest, the return on investment has been undeniable. Ayers shared, “Honestly, for what we’re getting, it’s a steal. Between cost savings, peace of mind, and scalability, the value is absolutely there.”

“What we were looking for was someone that could scale with our company from a cybersecurity and IT management standpoint—and for all intents and purposes, Thrive was it.”  – Chris Ayers, Vice President of Operations, Oak Harvest Financial Group

About Thrive

Thrive delivers global technology outsourcing for cybersecurity, Cloud, networking, and other complex IT requirements. Thrive’s NextGen platform enables customers to increase business efficiencies through standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI). They accomplish this with advisory services, vCISO, vCIO, consulting, project implementation, solution architects, and a best-in-class subscription-based technology platform. Thrive delivers exceptional high-touch service through its POD approach of subject matter experts and global 24x7x365 SOC, NOC, and centralized services teams. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

AI is transforming the way work gets done across industries. But while it improves business efficiencies, it also arms cybercriminals with highly effective tools. These bad actors use AI to power sophisticated social engineering tactics, including malware, ransomware, and convincing phishing campaigns, to trick targets into giving up personal information, compromising themselves and their organizations.

Empowering a National Mission

The Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT) serves as the national voice for more than 11,000 occupational therapists across Canada. Though their team is relatively small with 35 staff members, CAOT has a big mission: to support and advance the practice of occupational therapy nationwide. Headquartered in Ottawa with team members distributed from coast to coast, CAOT is representative of a growing number of associations facing the need for digital transformation in a hybrid and increasingly remote world.

For years, CAOT relied on a traditional hosted server infrastructure to support its operations, but with the pandemic accelerating remote work and new technologies offering more cost-effective and flexible alternatives, the organization decided it was time to evolve. That’s when they turned to their trusted managed service provider (MSP), Thrive, for guidance and support in making a major change: a full migration to SharePoint and Microsoft’s cloud environment.

Building a Roadmap to the Cloud 

“We actually built our IT roadmap internally,” explained Randy St. Louis, Senior Manager of Membership, Business Development & Information Technology at CAOT. “We knew we wanted to move to the cloud to support our transition to a fully remote office and reduce reliance on VPN access and physical infrastructure.” The team recognized that maintaining a hosted server was no longer cost-effective—especially when they were already paying for Microsoft 365 licenses that came with ample storage and collaboration tools.

Once CAOT had outlined its priorities, they engaged their MSP to help bring the vision to life. Thrive didn’t just execute—they enhanced the plan with expert insight, project coordination, and dedicated technical resources. “We went to them and said, here’s what we want to do. And they helped us figure out the ‘how,’ including the budget and timeline,” St. Louis shared.

Seamless SharePoint Migration: “It Couldn’t Have Gone Any Better” 

The SharePoint migration marked a major shift in how CAOT’s staff accessed and collaborated on documents. Gone were the days of VPN frustrations and slow access to shared drives. In their place were cloud-based file sharing, integrated workflows, and simplified, real-time collaboration.

“The process couldn’t have gone any better from a project management perspective,” Randy noted. “We had a dedicated project team that was extremely responsive. If one engineer didn’t have an answer, they could pull in another expert immediately. That kind of bench strength is something we wouldn’t have had with a smaller, local provider.”

Support didn’t end when the migration was complete. Months later, CAOT still relies on key contacts from the Thrive team. “I reached out to them just last week with a SharePoint question, and they got back to me with a solution within half an hour. That kind of access is invaluable.”

Training, Adoption, and Cultural Change

Migrating technology is one thing—getting people to use it effectively is another. Recognizing that the new environment would be a major shift for staff, CAOT prioritized user training. “People were used to saving files on a drive and attaching them to emails. Now everything’s in the cloud, autosaving, and easily shared, it’s a big adjustment.”

To support adoption, Thrive provided a trainer who delivered several training sessions to CAOT’s staff. This hands-on approach helped ease the learning curve and equipped staff to make the most of the tools available. As CAOT continues to move forward with its roadmap, training remains a top priority.

Tangible Impact: Reduced Costs and Fewer Tickets

Moving to SharePoint has already delivered measurable benefits. Beyond eliminating the $8-9,000 CAD annual server maintenance costs, the organization has seen a noticeable reduction in support tickets.

“After the migration, we saw a significant drop in tickets. Some of that is the luck of the draw, but overall, I’d say we’ve cut down on tickets by over 50%. And that number is only going to improve once we complete our Active Directory migration.”

From a financial perspective, the organization expects the SharePoint migration to pay for itself within two years. A similar return on investment is anticipated for the Active Directory project currently underway. “We’re spending more upfront, but over three years, our total IT costs will actually be lower than if we’d kept our old setup.” Thrive’s flexibility in spreading the project cost over monthly payments helps to make these modernization projects a reality for CAOT.

Choosing Service Over Shortcuts

As part of its due diligence, CAOT explored options with other local MSPs—both when their previous contract expired and again after committing to the SharePoint migration. To make sure they are effectively using their budget, they review suppliers at each contract renewal. While some alternatives offered slightly lower costs, they couldn’t match Thrive’s depth of resources or structured support model.

“The deciding factor wasn’t price. It was the project experience. The SharePoint migration went so smoothly, and we had such strong support throughout, that it made the decision to stick with Thrive easy.”

That level of service, according to CAOT, is worth the trade-off of not always having a familiar voice on the other end of the support line. “Yes, you sometimes get someone new when you call. But we’ve never had an issue getting the help we need,” said St. Louis.

Final Word

When asked why CAOT renewed their partnership with Thrive, the answer was simple: “It came down to the project experience. We were on the fence, but the support we received, especially from the project team, made it clear that sticking with them was the right call.”

As a national organization supporting thousands of professionals, CAOT understands the value of collaboration, care, and commitment. With a strategic IT partner by their side, they’re well-positioned to keep delivering on that mission, securely and efficiently, in the cloud.

“Ultimately, it comes down to access to resources. Having that dedicated bench strength, having someone I can call when I’m stuck—it’s made all the difference.” – Randy St. Louis, Senior Manager of Membership, Business Development & Information Technology, CAOT

About Thrive

Thrive delivers global technology outsourcing for cybersecurity, Cloud, networking, and other complex IT requirements. Thrive’s NextGen platform enables customers to increase business efficiencies through standardization, scalability, and automation, delivering oversized technology returns on investment (ROI). They accomplish this with advisory services, vCISO, vCIO, consulting, project implementation, solution architects, and a best-in-class subscription-based technology platform. Thrive delivers exceptional high-touch service through its POD approach of subject matter experts and global 24x7x365 SOC, NOC, and centralized services teams. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

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

Our featured employee is Matthew Palmer. As a Senior Account Manager, Matthew manages some of the largest and most complex New York-based Financial Services clients at Thrive. You could think of Matt as a quarterback – leading internal Thrive teams by example and navigating the intricacies of account management. 

While he lives in northern New Jersey, and works remotely most of the time, Matt can be found in the office once a week with the Manhattan team. Outside of work, he is an avid runner, running every day to prepare him for several half marathons and the marathon he’s completed. Regular hikes with his dog are a little slower paced! A connoisseur of wine and bourbon, Matt has visited the Kentucky bourbon trail and Napa several times. One trip to Napa included a proposal – she said yes!  Spending time with his wife and two beautiful daughters is the highlight of every day. 

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

I worked in hardware sales (printers, scanners, consumables, etc.) for six years prior to coming to Thrive. I wanted to break into an industry that relied less on hardware (at this time it was barely post-COVID, so the supply chain was a mess!) and had a bright future. When I started, it was eye opening, to say the least, and it took me a while to truly understand what our customers need and how to support them. However, I had great mentors along the way, and I was able to use the myriad of resources we have at Thrive to make sure I had the knowledge I needed to succeed. I am happy to now be one of those resources and help others. 

Where did you go to school or get training?  

I am a Rutgers University graduate; I received my bachelor’s degree in 2012 and my MBA in 2017. Other than that, it’s been learning on the job and retaining as much information as possible along the way. 

What do you most enjoy about working for Thrive?  

There are two specific characteristics about Thrive that I love. For one, we sell basically everything in the IT space, and this makes it much easier for us to be the one provider for a company. Great customer relationships built on trust essentially eliminate the need for them to shop around for other services because they know they can rely on Thrive. Because of the variety of products and services we offer, we have a lot of people with a lot of knowledge, all coming from different backgrounds. The second thing I love about Thrive is the people. It sounds crazy because you’d think everyone could say this about  the company they work for, but Thrive’s employees really care, especially the people at the top. I’ve pulled  executive level employees into meetings for so many different reasons because we all share the common goal of wanting to make our customers happy and support their businesses. One thing I say to every new employee that I work with is, “balance is key to our job.” Finding a way to make our customers love us and be an advocate for us, while at the same time introducing new solutions that can help them achieve their goals can be very difficult to do. Again, it starts with trust and communication. 

Are there any recent exciting projects at Thrive you can tell us about?  

 Any time we have a new solution, it’s exciting for the Account Management team. It’s sort of the grown-up version of getting a new toy to play with. You need to learn about it and understand it and then get the confidence to go out and talk about it. What we do is all about confidence – in ourselves, our team, our mission, and our level of service. Thrive is always adding new solutions that are the right fit for us and our customers. 

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

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… 

Just over a year ago, Change Healthcare was the target of the largest medical data breach in U.S. history. The cyberattack impacted over 190 million people in the U.S. and halted the healthcare technology company’s systems, causing months of outages.

The managed services market is off to a powerful start in 2025, with merger and acquisition (M&A) activity surging past $1 billion in disclosed deals during the first quarter (Q1) alone.

But the real story goes deeper than the numbers. According to the Drake Star Q1 2025 MSP Market Update, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a tool – it’s changing how managed service providers (MSPs) operate at every level, from support tickets to strategy.

This article explores how automation and smart tech are changing the MSP industry, and why investors are backing providers that can scale quickly, deliver more value, and stay ahead of client needs.

For MSPs that are looking to make the wise move of going deeper on cybersecurity services, expanding to become an MSSP is one notable option that many are considering right now.

But to be a “true” MSSP requires a major investment that not all MSPs are going to be positioned to make, according to Bill McLaughlin, CEO of Foxborough, Mass.-based service provider Thrive. The company operates multiple Security Operations Center (SOC) locations worldwide, allowing it to provide 24×7 managed security services to customers.

In 2025, many customers “want somebody who’s got expertise in being able to provide security around their enterprise, have the ability to manage it with a SOC 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” McLaughlin said.