Author Archives: Thrive

When important systems become unavailable due to infrastructure failure, human error, or a security breach, it can lead to unaffordable business interruption and downtime. The best way to ensure your organization is prepared for any scenario is to have business continuity and disaster recovery plans on hand.

While these terms are often used interchangeably, there are notable differences between the two, which is why it’s critical to have both plans in place to help mitigate the impact to business operations.

A business continuity plan refers to how a business continues to operate when key systems are down or an outage occurs. A disaster recovery plan, on the other hand, refers to how specific platforms, data, and applications are restored following a cyber attack, disaster, or other failure. At Thrive, we understand the needs of businesses and stress the importance of having actionable business continuity and disaster recovery plans in place.

Business Continuity Plan: A Must-Have for Every Organization

A March 2020 study from Mercer concluded that 51% of businesses did not have a business continuity plan in place to combat a global emergency, such as Covid-19. For many organizations, this lack of planning meant loss of revenue, unexpected expenditures to support a remote workforce, or loss of market share as better prepared competitors took advantage of their ability to adapt. Business continuity plans keep a business running effectively, even when faced with an unexpected disaster, and they’re a must-have for organizations across nearly every industry.

The goal of a business continuity plan is to know what processes can be kept in place when a disaster occurs, and which ones must be adapted. At Thrive, we stress two important terms when helping our customers to hone and craft a business continuity plan:

• Recovery Timeline Objective (RTO) – The time it takes systems to fully recover
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – The amount of data loss acceptable to a business

It must be plainly understood across departments within an organization where data is stored, what applications are in use, who stores the data, and who has access to it.

With a proper plan in place, it’s easier for everyone to know how to react should disaster strike. A plan allows you to prioritize what’s important – for instance, not being able to access email isn’t as critical as losing customer data that allows you to finalize an order or payment.

And, as our CIO Michael Gray outlined in a previous blog post, it’s worth the time to perform a tabletop exercise, which can help organizations identify and prepare for various scenarios, when it comes to business continuity planning.

Putting a Disaster Recovery Plan in Place

A disaster recovery plan refers to the specific part of the business continuity plan to be followed during and after data loss. It’s most important to get systems back up and running following a data loss event, in an effort to minimize downtime and business disruption.

As Thrive works with organizations, we tend to find there are on-premises and Cloud systems, along with SaaS applications, carrying various backup platforms. Our team can assist in testing these backup systems to see if they match what is laid out in the business continuity plan.

We understand that designing and executing a disaster recovery plan can be limited by budget, technology, resources, and staff on site, which is why our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a strong solution for many businesses. We will partner with your IT team to create a comprehensive plan allowing for backup of data and the IT infrastructure in a third-party Cloud environment. This makes it easier to access IT infrastructure following a disaster.

At Thrive, we will partner with you to create a comprehensive business continuity plan that extends to include disaster recovery planning. Get in touch with our experienced team to explore Thrive’s targeted solutions for your organization.

8 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Teams Experience and Boost Productivity

This month we’re looking at Microsoft Teams — a collaboration application that helps your team communicate and stay organized. Teams is actually a suite of bundled collaboration services available on your desktop, mobile device, or browser.

Many users assume that Teams only offers voice and calling capabilities. After all, with most of us working remotely, the phrase “I’ll send a Teams Meeting invitation shortly” is now a part of our daily vocabulary.

However, that’s just one of Teams’ many features. In this article, I’ll show you eight tips and tricks every Teams user should know.

1 – Customize Your Experience

The Microsoft Teams desktop application interface is highly customizable. Simply drag and drop the nodes into your preferred order or remove a node entirely by right-clicking and selecting ‘Unpin.’

2 – App Integration

Teams provides an App Gallery that lists Microsoft and third-party apps. If you’re using Microsoft Planner for task management or Zoom for video, you can prevent application switching by adding them to the Teams user interface.

If you’re not yet using Microsoft Planner, click here to review our Microsoft Planner blog.  

3 – Meet Now

Have you ever needed to get your team on a call quickly? Using emails, phone calls, and text messages to notify everyone is slow and painstaking. Teams has a fix for that! Click the Calendar node, and in the top right-hand corner, you’ll find Meet Now. Click the button, give the meeting a name, then click Start Meeting.

When the standard Teams Meeting screen appears, select the required settings and click Join Now.

4 – Screen Sharing

Previously, screen sharing was not available to everyone and didn’t always work well. But performance has improved, and now everyone has access to this feature!

When in a Teams Meeting, click the screen sharing button, select the screen or document you want to share, and you’re done! This feature is also available in the mobile app, so you can easily share documents while on a call. Who says you can’t close deals while sitting in the airport lounge or enjoying coffee and cake on a restaurant patio?

5 – Recording

If you’re presenting via Microsoft Teams and need to record, Microsoft Teams has you covered. Click the menu button (3 dots) at the top of the screen, then click Start Recording. A banner will appear across the screen, alerting everyone that the call is being recorded. We’ll discuss how and where this recording is saved later in this article.

6 – Live Captions

Have you ever lost sleep wondering if Microsoft Teams had a captions feature? Perhaps not, but don’t worry — there’s a captions feature built into the application.

Click the menu button (3 dots) at the tops of the screen, then click ‘Turn on Live Captions’ to see the dialogue printed at the bottom of the screen.

7 – Meeting Notes

Did you know that Microsoft Teams provides a Meeting Notes feature? Click the menu button (3 dots), then click Meeting Notes. This creates a new group in Teams Chat, automatically adding all meeting members and ensuring that everyone has access to the meeting minutes, both during and following the meeting.

8 – Content Aggregation

Once your meeting has ended, you’ll find the meeting notes and call recording listed in a newly created group under Teams Chat. Teams automatically puts everything in a single, easy to access location.

Are You Teams-Ready?

Microsoft continues to integrate new features into Teams, improving and expanding its capabilities. In future posts, we’ll explore some of the more advanced Teams features. In the meantime, using these eight tricks and tips should help improve your productivity and overall Teams experience.

Cyber attacks are an unfortunate reality that all organizations must contend with. For those in the healthcare field, it’s of the utmost importance to meet all HIPAA compliance regulations while safeguarding critical protected health information (PHI).

Remote work presents a long list of challenges for doctors, healthcare professionals, and staff, which is why Thrive works to provide an actionable cyber security plan that considers two important components – CybeRTO and CybeRPO. Ensuring all staff can work remotely while mitigating security breach risks is imperative to protecting the long-term success of any healthcare organization.

Are you doing enough to defend your organization from HIPAA violations while providing a remote work setup? CyberRTO and CybeRPO should be important considerations in any cyber security continuity plan, especially in healthcare.

HIPAA Compliance: An Evolving Process

Within the healthcare industry, inherent risks exist that other industries and organizations may not face – so often, end users are the ones who must have a close eye on compliance regulations and policies. It’s important to limit access to only those who need it. PHI should only be seen by members who need it to complete their work, and HIPAA-compliant applications and tools should be used to protect patient privacy.

Encryption is an important part of any work-from-home policy for healthcare organizations. Wireless routers, email, and devices should be configured in a manner to protect valuable patient information. For instance, Microsoft 365 comes with the option of data loss prevention (DLP), which is capable of screening emails for PHI, encrypting any email that may contain personal information.

Disabling of removable media storage should be done as well. If PHI is on a device, USB drives and portable media drives shouldn’t be able to transfer data off the computer’s hard drive.

The Thrive team can help implement a HIPAA-compliant process as technologies and data needs continue to evolve within the organization.

Cyber Attack Preparation: Putting a Plan in Place

CybeRTO and CybeRPO represent security response times and the recovery of data in the event of a breach or cyber attack. Together, they define just how much time and data loss a healthcare organization can afford.

CybeRTO refers to how long it takes to respond to a threat, and could be something as simple as patching a vulnerability before an incident occurs or something as complicated as reacting to a cyber event. It also takes into account how long it will take to recover from an attack that has affected the work environment.

On the other hand, CybeRPO refers to the data that could be lost in a cyber attack, and how much data would be exposed. In the case of the healthcare industry, that could mean the loss of PHI and having to respond to HIPAA compliance issues.

Thrive designs solutions capable of backing up data when you want it backed up – whether that’s in real time as files or servers, or hourly, daily, or weekly. We recommend real-time Cloud backup, giving end users the ability to easily access files they need if a disruption occurs.

As you create your continuity plan, keep in mind the CybeRTO and CybeRPO requirements, especially in this work-from-home era. Contact the Thrive team for more information about protecting your end users (and patients) while working virtually.

Recently, Thrive’s CISO, Chip Gibbons, and EVP & GM of Microsoft Collaboration, Ryan Thomas, hosted an informative webinar discussing the important topics of security and collaboration.

Discussion included secure external sharing in Microsoft Office programs, the security and governance controls that should be in place in every organization, and how platforms continue to evolve and why it’s important to stay up to date with the latest features and changes.

Below, check out some highlights from this enlightening conversation.

On what’s driving transformation in collaboration:

Ryan: People are looking for efficiency. They have vendors, consultants, and external projects to complete. Sending outdated, antiquated documents back and forth over email and trying to piece the changes back together is difficult. As someone who has been diving into Microsoft Teams for years now, when I have to go back to sending items over email it’s tough.

Chip: Absolutely. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has dealt with this, but starting an email thread can sometimes morph into something completely else, or something that doesn’t have to deal with the original email. This is where Teams and collaboration can shine. With Teams, there’s built-in security that’s already there, because you know who you are collaborating with and doing so in real-time.

Ryan: Right. Email is a tough place to store data and access it. It’s fine to send a message to someone, but when it comes to working on a document or sending one, it becomes difficult to use email. We hear from clients that their vendors and their customers are asking for [collaboration tools], too. It’s not just for internal use, but it’s for external use, too.

Why data classification and protecting data matters:

Ryan: One of the things we always highly recommend is a governance plan. Governance is half about security, and half about guidance. Part of governance is about architecture, and understanding the type of data that will be shared externally, so policies can be set.

Chip: Policies and procedures are important. You can’t secure anything before knowing what you’re trying to secure and how to secure it. We do come across clients who may not have an information security plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect the very first time, but there has to be a plan on paper to start with. If there is no written information security policy, employees don’t know what they can and can’t share. Should they be on social media? Should they be able to plug a USB port into a work computer and take data home? It depends on the security policy. If there’s nothing there, then we don’t know what should and shouldn’t be protected.

On platform capabilities and what they can offer:

Ryan: I think a lot of people don’t know what the platform capabilities are and how these platforms can protect them. Simply going through settings can give you an idea but won’t give you the full picture. The first thing we always do is we start to educate ourselves on what a platform can offer, to better understand what data can and should be locked down. Education is important.

Chip: Education is important, yes. It can’t just stop, either. The platform will keep on changing.

Ryan: Exactly. Customers ask us to help them keep up with everything a platform has to offer. From a security and a sharing perspective, that is a risk, right? When things change in the platform, they need to be identified quickly. Capabilities continue to be added, and it can present more challenges along the way. We’re here to help. When a platform is set up with proper policies, it can be secured where it would pass a stress test of a security audit.

Chip: We don’t ever put something into place and leave it and walk away. It’s important to monitor, maintain, and adjust as things change.

How to avoid “shadow IT”:

Chip: There’s a whole concept of “shadow IT”, where employees are trying to do their jobs, and they want to do their job right, and they need to get data to someone. So, they might, for example, open up a personal Dropbox account and transfer data that way. The last thing anyone wants is data leaving the organization and not knowing where it’s going. Having policies and procedures in place goes a long way to eliminating shadow IT and data leaving the organization. It’s not malicious intent. It’s just an employee trying to do their job. They need to have the right tools so they can do their job effectively and not put an organization at risk.

Ryan: We can set the needs up in a way that they are supported. Generally, end users will find a way. We call it shadow IT, but essentially, they’re working around systems. So, give them a viable solution to do what they need but make it viable and secure. You’re better off that way than you are letting them try to figure it out on their own and seeing data or important information slip through the cracks.

Be sure to check out the full conversation below, and contact the Thrive team for all of your digital transformation and security needs. We are here to ensure organizations have everything they need to work successfully, whether in the office or remotely.

As remote work continues to play a pivotal role in our lives, it’s more important than ever for employees to have access to what they need when they need it most. Thrive helps clients manage an ever-evolving remote work setup, one that may require access to a file management platform.

Microsoft offers both OneDrive and SharePoint in its suite of services, and while these file management platforms have plenty in common, there are some key differences between the two, with distinguishing features that help drive business efficiencies.

Ensure a proper approach to file sharing, collaboration, and document management, with Thrive’s customized recommendations of how to deliver a complete file management solution.

Are OneDrive and SharePoint One and the Same?

OneDrive and SharePoint assist in file management, with any documents and data safely stored in the Cloud, giving users the ability to view documents, make changes, and see the version history of the document itself.

Made for those on the go, they both offer mobile-friendly features and syncing of files across devices. With OneDrive and SharePoint in Microsoft Office 365, files are stored in the Cloud, and it’s easy to sync either OneDrive or SharePoint files to a computer.

Think of OneDrive as the best choice for individual employees. Employees can create a document privately, work on a first draft, and manage projects yet to draw in the larger team. SharePoint allows employees to take that next step, uploading a personal draft from OneDrive so the larger team has access to the file. Administrators can set up permissions, too, giving access only to authorized team members. Now, multiple employees can comment, edit, and make changes to the document within the SharePoint system, so everyone is kept up to date with the latest progress.

Working solo? OneDrive is the way to go. Bringing a larger team in for the conversation? SharePoint access will drive productivity.

What are the Key Differences Between OneDrive and SharePoint?

With OneDrive, users have a personal account which keeps them in full control of files they create and upload. Only when a larger team needs access to the file will it be shared from OneDrive, which is a Cloud-based offering.

SharePoint is designed as a work process management platform, and while through Office 365 it offers Cloud capabilities, it can become an on-premises solution, as well. SharePoint allows administrators to create team-specific sites, going beyond the basic personalized interface of OneDrive. These team-specific sites may include easy-to-use dashboards, calendars, project updates, and task lists, ensuring seamless collaboration among all users.

Another major SharePoint advantage is the ability to customize internal team sites and outgoing communications. For example, admins can update an employee portal using the SharePoint interface and team-shared documents. Thanks to SharePoint’s CMS application, it’s easy to update a customer-facing website, too, with the ability to publish documents directly to the site.

Organizations have choices to make when it comes to OneDrive and SharePoint, but the reality is that using a combination of both will benefit businesses. To discover how to best utilize OneDrive and SharePoint and better understand Cloud and on-premises options, get in touch with the experienced team at Thrive today.

By Ian Bowell, Head of Information Security – EMEA

Information security attacks continue to impact organizations around the world and there is no sign that the frequency, variety or scope of breach events will decrease any time soon. To meet the challenge of changing risks, a well-known standard in cybersecurity compliance has been recently updated, as anticipated for some time.

The ISO 27001 is the international standard for Information Security management from the International Organization for Standardization. Currently utilizing definitions from 2013 documents with updates in 2014 and 2015, it is the central framework for implementation requirements in an ISMS (Information Security Management System). Organizations can certify to ISO 27001 leveraging the management standard to achieve compliance. The new third edition of the ISO 27002 released in 2021 introduces a code of practice for security controls which compliments the requirements of ISO 27001.

The implementation, certification and compliance with ISO 27001 and 27702 present new opportunities for revenue growth. By aligning your data security with ISO standards, your organization stands out as operating according to international best practices. Investors, stakeholders as well as new and existing clientele can rest assured your organization’s data is secure using ISO standards.

To be clear, the ISO 27001 is the standard against which organizations are certified. ISO 27002 provides the supplementary detail for the selection, implementation and management of information security controls.

The differences indicate the new and updated ways in which an organization must address and manage information security in order to become ISO 27001 certified in the near future. Organizations must recertify every three years, with annual surveillance audits, allowing for a conversion period when a new standard is released. If the ISO 27002 results in a new recertification process in 2021 or 2022, organizations will have the option to recertify to the old 2013 standard allowing time to update the associated processes according to the new ISO 27002 controls. By 2024 or 2025 all organizations will be using the new standard, but those keen to update will do so much sooner.

The ISO works to ensure consistency across all their standards in different areas of business such as manufacturing, supply chain and financial services. If your organization has other ISO certifications such as risk management, financial management, etc., it is likely that those standards will update to condense older processes or add new requirements. The key to managing ISO certification is to address multiple standards with an interrelated consistent process to minimize repetitive or conflicting processes between updates.

As information security is one of the key business practices these days, and of great concern to modern businesses and their executive boards, it is not surprising that ISO 27002 leads the way to revision.

But enough of the context, and on to the controls themselves – what has changed?

Information Security controls are now in 4 categories:

Section 5. Organizational controls

Section 6. People controls

Section 7. Physical controls

Section 8. Technological controls

This significantly reduces the current 14 categories, and as noted above, provides more consistency and commonality with other ISO standards.

The total number of controls in ISO 27002 has reduced overall from 114 to 93 and sixteen legacy controls have been removed.

Reflecting the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape, twelve new controls have been introduced as follows:

• Threat intelligence
• Information security for use of cloud services
• Data leakage prevention
• Information deletion and data obfuscation, or masking, for privacy
• Business continuity readiness
• Identity management
• Physical security monitoring
• Endpoint security for user devices
• Configuration management
• Web filtering
• Secure coding

In a further development of the often-quoted CIA security properties of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability, the new ISO 27001 details new attributes to ease classification and management.  Controls are assigned a type such as Preventive, Detective, Corrective, with Information Security properties CIA as before.

Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover are used as key concepts for information security, and operational capabilities have been assigned as continuity, physical security, Information security event management.

At Thrive, we provide a defense in depth approach, with various products and layers of cybersecurity to address upcoming changes from the ISO. With many of these controls in place already, we look forward to matching our processes and controls to the newest standard.

There are many more details and the full document can be purchased from the ISO here https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:27002:dis:ed-3:v1:en

We look forward to doing so ourselves to further digest and apply the standard when we recertify. Whether the new standard will be available when we recertify ourselves in 2022 remains to be seen.

And thanks to Rushabh Mehta for the analysis of the new ISO 27002.

The new app delivers a more streamlined Office 365 mobile experience.

By Christian Wilmot, Client Technical Manager – EMEA

This month we are looking at the Microsoft Office mobile app. A silent but colossal game changer when working with Office 365 on iOS and Android devices.

With the expansion of cloud services, the demand for on-the-go secure access to corporate data has grown. And the Office mobile apps have been at the forefront, providing on the go access to Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and other apps across a plethora of devices.

However, document hand-offs between the Office mobile apps have been a challenging experience at best and, at times, excruciating. For example, the regular app switching, or when tapping to edit a document in OneDrive, being sent to the Word app only to find the document has not opened and having to switch back to OneDrive. Argh!

Access to the individual Office apps on mobile devices is excellent for alternative investment organizations that want to supply access only to specific applications via Intune. And when combined with conditional access security policies, Office 365 administrators have granular control but can sometimes result in a bloated company portal and complex user experience.

The Future of Mobile Office…

But now, another Microsoft mobile app has emerged. A Microsoft app forged in the deepest depths of Redmond (USA) with the sole purpose of transforming Office 365 mobile working forever. One app to replace them all… well, most of them anyway.

It is a mobile app that has snuck into the iOS and Android app stores with extraordinarily little fanfare. An app that reminds me of the late Steve Jobs’ words when describing iTunes on Windows. This, for me, perfectly sums up the new Office mobile app when working with the many and at times clunky Office 365 apps on mobile devices. ‘It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell’. And the mobile app, which I believe is an absolute game-changer in the Office 365 mobile working field, is called… wait for it… Office.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/mobile

So, how does the Office mobile app differ from the other independent apps that make up the Office suite?

Well, for starters, the app aggregates the functionality of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, SharePoint and Forms into a single streamlined app. And if that isn’t enough, it also provides an array of practical features, particularly for alternative investment managers who need access around the clock.

Read more: Dive deep into Microsoft Planner.

OneDrive Look & Feel

When you first open the Office mobile app, you will notice the OneDrive centric feel. Thumbnails of frequently accessed documents are along the top with recently accessed files in a clear and scrollable list below. There is also a helpful folder tab in the top right-hand corner, which navigates to OneDrive and SharePoint, allowing navigation through your entire folder structures. So, there is no need to switch to the OneDrive or SharePoint Online mobile apps off the bat. Great!

Word Processing Made Easy

The Office app also provides editing functionality. For example, opening a Word document and tapping a sentence brings up the keyboard. And the microphone button, which offers transcription, works remarkable well. One of the best features is Read Aloud, which is baked right into the Office app. Tap the menu button, select Read Aloud, and the audio controls will appear, turning a lengthy word document into a personalized audiobook to listen to on the commute home. Asset managers who already use the independent Word app might think, ‘this is nothing new; all these features exist in the Word app.’ And you would be correct, but word processing in the Office app is a far richer experience and a lot more stable and convenient.

Image 5 768×617 1

Tap, Tap, Create!

When tapping the plus button at the bottom of the home screen, you will notice the ability to create new documents and forms, which save directly into OneDrive or SharePoint. Again, some might think, big deal, but the simplicity and lack of app switching is excellent, which saves alternative investment managers time while also ensuring secure environments.

Image 6

Who needs Apple Notes when you’ve got Sticky Notes?

For those that are familiar with Apple Notes, I would recommend trying the Microsoft sticky notes feature. This simple plain text editor is built into the Office app for ease of access and can be organized in OneNote.

https://www.onenote.com/stickynotes

Office Lens, the perfect photoshoot for your paperwork…

For the Office 365 veterans, Office Lens has been around for years. And when it was integrated into the OneDrive mobile app many moons ago, it was a feature I extensively used. For those who have not used it, in short, it allows you to take a picture of a document and, via software imaging, flattens the image, converts it to PDF and saves it to OneDrive. A fantastic tool for asset managers to easily track expenses, receipts, and invoices. And built into the Office mobile app for ease of use and access!

Actions

Office Actions are fantastic, and this tab I can only see expanding in functionality over the coming years. I will not go into each in detail and instead provide an overview.

Share Files – For those familiar with AirDrop on Apple devices, this feature provides similar functionality and allows you to pair the Office app and mobile device via Bluetooth to a laptop and send and receive documents up to 30MB. Perfect for moving a large image or video between devices.

Do More with PDFs – This collection of features, though it is in the initial stages, are excellent. From here, alternative investment managers can sign PDFs by scribbling a signature on the screen, streamlining approval processes. Of course, it does not provide the in-depth audit trails of products like DocuSign, but the functionality is great. It also allows the conversion of PDF documents to Word, a brilliant feature that works surprisingly well.

Simple and Secure

For organizations that use Intune for centralized Mobile Device Management, the Office mobile app can slip right into the company portal. It supports conditional access security policies, ensuring a consistent user experience across Office 365 and app protection policies, allowing the app to function in a containerized environment on mobile devices to secure corporate data. These security features are particularly relevant for alternative investment firms that are facing increased cybersecurity threats.

Conclusion

The Office mobile app is an excellent addition to the Microsoft mobile app offering. It provides a feature-rich environment, cutting down on application switching. It is the perfect tool for alternative investment firms that want to equip their workforce with a more streamlined Office 365 mobile experience. Since installing the Office mobile app, I’ve found myself working from my iPad and iPhone more, editing documents I would typically wait until I was in front of my laptop to work on.

So if you have not tried it yet, download the app today!

Companies of all sizes can benefit from applying digital transformation concepts to their organization. But too often these modern services are delivered via an outdated delivery model that doesn’t fit the realities of the business.

Not long ago, consultants would design a large-scale solution for a defined problem or need. The organization would be left with a hefty bill and heavily built solution that hopefully provided some value. If even marginal improvements were seen, everyone declared victory and went on to the next big project.

This was not always a path small- and medium-sized businesses could – or should – take. Often, these businesses would purchase off-the-shelf software and services, and hope for the best. Both larger and smaller organizations incurred technical “debt” in the form of maintenance, aging software, updates, migrations, and service packs. Ultimately, their state-of-the-art solution became an aging, unviable one faster than expected.

However, the world has changed, particularly when it comes to accessing technology. Opportunities exist for organizations to gain value through digital transformation as a fractional service.

A Manageable Way to Achieve Digital Transformation

Access to “billion dollar” software was unheard for SMBs of just a decade or so ago. Today, a mid-sized company can sign up for Microsoft Office 365 with a credit card. For a relatively low monthly cost per user, state-of-the-art email, document management, workflow platforms, data visualization tools, and top collaboration tools are available. Setting up and configuring SharePoint was once a lengthy IT project in and of itself. Now it’s accessible with a few clicks.

At Thrive, we strive to help businesses solve problems and inefficiencies, replace paper-based solutions, and achieve digital reporting, visualization, and collaboration transformation. With lessons learned from the days of big projects, we view digital transformation as an ongoing process — one that will continue as long as the technology, people, and businesses change. The best way to address change is to align with it. We believe strongly that the ideal approach is to align the rate of change an organization can absorb with organizational needs, and adapt resources and plans accordingly.

For example, a typical digital transformation journey may involve one day each month of strategic planning and guidance, two days of training, three days of workflow development, a day of architecture and design for the upcoming efforts, and three days of reactive support and changes to existing solutions. This adds up to about 10 days a month, or one-third of what would normally be a single, full-time employee. Some months may require more development, and others more reactive support. It’s important to engage with a service delivery model that accommodates the needed flexibility.

Several factors make digital transformation as a fractional service significantly more effective:

• Adoption: A mid-sized business can only make, accept, absorb, and respond to a certain number of changes. Understanding that and building a cadence is key.
  
• Cost: A full-time consultant or employee can be expensive. If utilizing a full-time resource is difficult to fit into the budget, it may not be the best use of resources.
  
• Expertise: Assigning one person to a project can lead to a knowledge bottleneck. No matter how smart that person may be, they likely don’t have the breadth of experience that a whole team can deliver. Multiple people should be evaluating problems and collaborating on a solution.
• Single Point of Failure: People come and go from organizations, but operational needs will continue. A one-person team leaving for a new job can completely derail entire projects, especially at smaller companies.

The most important takeaway is to get educated on the modern capabilities digital transformation platforms provide, and start working on a model to make use of them.

Larger organizations with sprawling IT departments have had the advantage of awareness and education, with access to higher quality resources for many years. Now that smaller organizations enjoy access to the same technical resources, they have an advantage in digital transformation through their agility and flexibility, but need the right partner to get the most of these resources. The message is clear, though – organizations of all sizes can modernize IT infrastructure through fractional digital transformation, and Thrive can assist with yours.

Digital transformation is not a one-time project, and does not occur overnight. It’s a continuous process that changes as technology evolves and organizational needs develop.

Thrive offers tailored solutions, with a focus on bringing end users into the equation, to drive long-term success for organizations. Our Office 365 Center of Excellence (CoE) is a managed services solution that understands moving targets and changing goals. When utilized properly, clients discover Office 365 improves productivity and maximizes their investment.

Leveraging the Digital Tools at Your Fingertips

A business assessment is the first step to understanding how to best leverage the power of Office 365. Is a basic business license enough, or should a more advanced license be used? How many employees use the products, and are they in the office or remote? Everything should be taken into consideration during the assessment workshop, as we gather key stakeholders and show opportunities for improvement on the road to digital transformation.

When devising a governance plan, guidelines, policies, and processes should always align with the vision and business roadmap. However, this roadmap alignment is not always carved into stone, and changes will occur. Opportunities arise to revisit the roadmap, implement feedback from end users, and make feature additions or software changes as new technology is released or business needs evolve. Your governance plan should account for this evolution.

A defined strategy and governance plan sets the stage for a proper architecture to be put in place. This architecture includes which Office 365 tools will be in use, aligning the necessary applications with strategy and governance, and ensuring the proper design and delivery with customization and configuration.

At Thrive, we seek to create a long-term, consultative partnership with clients, working in a manner that allows for roadmap revisions and reorganization when needed, while delivering value at every stage.

Best-in-Class End User Support Training

Targeted training prepares end users and gives them the ability to fully utilize Office 365 products. While generic training videos may explain general ideas and concepts, they don’t always meet the end user where they currently are. Thrive assembles training on common threads of how tools work based on governance policies, with custom materials designed around specific needs.

Thrive also supports multiple ways to complete the training. In the past, in-person training was a popular option (which will hopefully return in the future), along with Microsoft 365 learning pathways, a customizable training experience with step-by-step learning modules. If governance policies require revisions to the solution, training can be adjusted as needed, helping end users understand the full scope of new offerings.

Over the years, we have seen the bloat that comes with adopting new tools and programs from various providers, requiring administrators and IT staff to be experts on several platforms. This can, of course, also mean extra licensing fees and require further coordination among all users to achieve a desired end result. Thankfully, Office 365 centralizes many offerings for the user and the IT staff. For instance, OneDrive’s interface is similar to SharePoint, enabling users to become accustomed to a platform more rapidly, and to share documents and information more easily.

The Office 365 platform will continue to develop and evolve as time goes on. We will assist with integrating enhancements and new platform features as they become available, keeping your organization on a trajectory that ensures your digital transformation has ongoing impact. For more information about maximizing your Microsoft investment, get in touch with the Thrive team today!

A managed services provider should be both an innovator and an advisor, helping to set the stage for its clients’ business growth and success. Thrive’s best practices and proven engagement model ensure our clients’ IT infrastructure is well-managed, secure, and highly performant. By consistently delivering the best possible customer service experience, the Thrive team has become trusted partners for our emerging, mid-market, and enterprise clients.

To ensure client success, Thrive brings together the people, processes, and platforms that businesses need to succeed, making us valuable partners for our clients up and down the East Coast.

Our Customer Account Management Model

Our Customer Account Management, or “pod” model, includes virtual CIOs, Principal Consultants (PCs), Client Engagement Managers (CEMs), and Account Executives (AEs). When clients call, they speak to a well-versed team member assigned specifically to the account. There’s no need to wait around for a response, as we provide managed services coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Industry-Specific Knowledge

We’re proud to assist organizations across the business spectrum, to strategically implement IT infrastructure that meets industry-specific demands.

We serve leaders in several sectors, including:

• Financial services
• Life sciences
• Healthcare
• Education
• Retail
• Legal

Most importantly, we track the latest government, security, and related regulations to ensure clients have comprehensive protection and a tailored cyber security plan.

The Thrive Platform

Powered by ServiceNow, the Thrive Platform is a comprehensive IT service management resource. Not only does this platform automate previously manual tasks, but it also informs decisions and educates an entire workforce. When logging in to the platform, clients can see the latest system news and status reports, access product sheets, and learn about the latest trends in IT through our blog posts.

The platform also includes a full training library, which helps align an entire organization’s IT and cybersecurity operations, limiting end user downtime and business disruption.

NextGen and Traditional IT Services

Thrive’s NextGen managed services accelerate any IT program, optimizing business performance and future-proofing digital infrastructure in the process. Managed Cloud, cyber security, and disaster recovery offerings bring clients into the 21st century and help them prepare for future growth.

Of course, our traditional IT services, which include hardware and software, server infrastructure, and office firewalls, also provide a level of customization for clients. With each service, we leverage the latest technology to deliver the most beneficial solution for each client’s needs.

Our Mission – Serving Clients Every Day

Over the years, we’ve built a corporate culture around client success, which drives us every day. We are constantly evaluating, building, and delivering the best IT solutions to our clients, and staying up to date with the latest trends in the marketplace.

The dedicated engineers and team members on our staff are committed to serving the needs of Thrive’s clients and have a passion for knowledge that informs their decision-making.

We strive to deliver an engaging and welcoming client experience every day. Get in touch with us to learn more about our services and see how we can transform your IT infrastructure.