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"Our clients pay for IT that works – for technology that's straightforward and hassle-free. Kerio suits us because it demands very little management time and helps us run a lean operation."
Ian Fraser, Director eastQuayIT
The IT business is supremely collaborative. Success as a managed services provider depends on choosing great partners – partners you can rely on to help you build solutions so good, clients keep coming back for more.
That's the story behind the extraordinary growth of eastQuayIT, a managed services provider serving around 30 small to mid-sized clients in construction, creative, and hi-tech industries. eastQuayIT is a Kerio Preferred Partner – and growing the Kerio element of its business year on year. eastQuayIT wins new clients through reputation and word of mouth; it retains them by ensuring their IT runs effortlessly.
Although eastQuayIT is only six years old, its founders, Ian Fraser and Giles Wright, have many years of heavyweight experience behind them in organizations such as Lloyds Insurance and the New York Stock Exchange. Ian and Giles came together in 2010 because their skills were complementary and their separate businesses were growing too fast for them to manage on their own.
Ian was already a Kerio partner, but Giles was not. So one of Ian's first tasks was to convince Giles that reselling Kerio products made good business sense.
"Giles was easily won over," says Ian. "He saw how well Kerio products performed and how easy they were to manage. Becoming a Kerio partner was a sound business move for us because we wanted to support PC, Mac, and Linux systems, and Kerio sits well with all three."
eastQuayIT's clients range in size from five employees to 200. A few have their own in-house IT teams; most have limited IT skills and outsource everything to eastQuayIT.
"Trust is vital in this industry," says Ian. "To be successful as a managed services provider, clients have to believe in you, which means that we, in turn, have to believe in our partners and their products. So we don't just resell all four Kerio products, we use them everyday in our own business."
As a result, around 60% of eastQuayIT's clients also use Kerio products.
"Our clients pay for IT that works – for technology that's straightforward and hassle-free," explains Ian. "Kerio suits us because it needs very little management time and helps us run a lean operation. With a team of just seven we serve about 500 users."
Kerio supports its partners through its award-winning Partner Program, awarded five stars, six years in a row by CRN for its generous margins, marketing leads, and deal-closing sales tools. At the heart of the program is the Kerio University and its rigorous training scheme. All training is free for partners.
"Kerio University keeps us on our toes and up to speed with the latest releases," says Ian. "There are annual tests, too, which we have to pass to retain our Preferred Partner status. The effort we put in is well worth it because Preferred Partners have access to marketing funds and additional discounts."
He adds: "Kerio gives us as much support as we need. It's extremely useful because we're technical people, not marketers. We speak with them once a week on the phone and on the odd occasion when we come across something we can't resolve in-house. In most cases we can answer questions ourselves because there's so much helpful online support."
A feature of Kerio is the responsiveness of its development teams. They do their best to turn customer suggestions into product improvements at the next release. That's what keeps Kerio at the forefront of the industry.
"Kerio is easy to sell," says Ian. "Naturally I always give clients a choice of solutions, but Kerio is invariably the one they choose."
He adds: "It's all too easy for IT providers and their clients to be blinkered – to stick with what they know. I urge them to give Kerio a go. The products are easy to use and the team is very forward-thinking. If you make a comparison between Kerio and what you're currently using, you'll find that Kerio is better and less expensive."
