We want control.

It was an unusual journey for us, because we were already 20 years old. It started with support. What we did with other solutions was that our customers wanted a better service. We were an internet service provider at the time because we offered internet through an ISP in the UK. We had a lot of our technicians on the phone with people and we couldn't solve the problem as quickly as we wanted. We said, we can do better than that. That's how we really grew. Over the years, we've done a lot of negotiation and partnered with the best suppliers to provide the best experience and service in terms of maintenance and specific times. When we have more control over things, and it sounds a bit strange that we want to have control, but we do because it means we can prioritize the things that are a problem. For us, the most important thing was that the people delivering the technology and service do it as quickly as possible and waste less time.

The world we live in now, with fast communication via the internet, means that we can solve 95 percent more of the problems we see with everything we do. Our team has grown a lot in that time. When I joined the company, we were about 15 people. Now we're over 60 and our team makes up almost half of the company. We have structured it into a typical 1st, 2nd and 3rd line. But we also created Proactive Security Monitoring and a Proactive Security Team, which then work through the 1st, 2nd and 3rd line in an architect style and less from a support perspective.

The first thing we like to do when we bring someone in is to see what they already have. If we already have an antivirus program, we need to look at what the antivirus program does. It's about visibility, what we can see. And whether there are the right providers. We chose Sophos and MIMECAST for email filtering and endpoint security. We also use Sophos's MDR service, so we have round-the-clock security here too. This means that our team doesn't always have to be online.

Normally we sit down with the client and do a security audit to find out what the risks are in terms of user mobility and how the client is setting up their clients. Because sometimes we see clients who need to send information securely but are not using their email securely. So it's important to have a good basis to identify the risks, and then we can eliminate those risks by using these special services. Because our customers don't want to worry about their security themselves. They want us to do it for them. And they want us to tell them that they have the best information so that they can be sure that they can do what they do as a business, and we do what we do as a business, and we combine those two things.

Some of these applications come from the Cyber Essentials System, which is a government framework that everyone in the public sector should be using. It's also an important part of the trends, and we're seeing a lot of security issues and applications coming from cyber insurance companies. A lot of cyber insurers now want to see that you have your Microsoft 365 score and your Cyber Essentials so they know they're not at risk. That makes it easier for them in terms of security, but also for customers. The basis is a mixture of us, the industry standards and also the providers.

Yes, absolutely. I think we've seen for years that customers start with support. Now we're finding that we have customers who give us five or six services on day one. That makes it more difficult for customers because they have to use all those services. But if we understand that, we can help customers understand what we can overcome. Maybe we start with support and say we'll support you on day 1 of day X. And then, in three months, we'll look at the email filter. A few months later, we'll add virus protection and when the time is right, we'll include M365. Because, as I said, we want to have control over our customers' systems as quickly as possible.

We talked about MDR earlier. It's relatively new on the market. It's about being close to the suppliers so that you know when something new comes onto the market. And you know how it fits into your own product portfolio. Sometimes it's difficult to know what the future holds. There is a lot of AI that suppliers are building into the software. That also brings with it a lot of fear. But there are also a lot of vendors bringing AI into security and distribution. We are ISO 9001 and ISO 270001 certified and therefore work in a very process-oriented way as a company. We can't just say, 'Here's a new service, we'll introduce it tomorrow,' because we need our teams to be as trained and accredited as they need to be so that we can communicate properly.