How VCS Technologies Leveraged Vade for M365 to Enhance Clients’ Email Security and Experience
About VCS Technologies
VCS Technologies is a US-based managed service provider (MSP) headquartered in Winona, MN. A full-service MSP founded in 2001, the company specializes in proactive technology management, network administration, technical support services, and technology consulting. VCS Technologies serves businesses across the Midwest and Northeastern US in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, retail, finance, and professional services.Background
Mark Krinke founded VCS Technologies out of his college dorm room. Fixing computer issues for students on campus, the business quickly grew and began serving local businesses throughout the community. Within a few years, Mark left school to focus on his business full-time. He set his sights on making VCS Technologies the premier MSP in Minnesota. More than two decades later, the company is thriving, primarily serving small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) in the Great Lakes region.
“We’ve been able to get ourselves to a place where we don’t advertise or do anything for exposure,” said Mark Krinke, founder and president of VCS Technologies. “It's word of mouth and slow and steady growth. The biggest differentiator in our area is reputation. We've been able to build a solid reputation over the years. Our team is focused on developing personal relationships with our clients, which I think is unique, especially in the tech world.”
Consistent with this customer-first approach, VCS Technologies uniquely doesn’t limit service hours or support for clients. “It’s a little strange that we don’t,” said Mark. “But that allows our techs the time get to know the people they're serving and to make sure they're extremely well taken care of. That’s been the ticket to our success.”
We’ve been able to get ourselves to a place where we don’t advertise or do anything for exposure
THE CHALLENGE
After years of figuring out how to operate efficiently, provide quality service, and generate desirable profit margins, VCS Technologies faced a major obstacle. Microsoft changed its licensing to make it difficult for organizations to self-host email, leaving MSPs like Mark’s in a precarious position.
“Up until that point, we ran email in house. We used to have Linux servers before running our own in-house Exchange,” said Mark. “We had all that multi-tenanted for years.”
And then the change happened.
“We really kind of waited for Microsoft 365 to mature to where we knew it wasn’t going anywhere and would be the de facto standard going forward. Once that started to happen, we began preparing our clients to move to M365,” said Mark.
The process was difficult. “We were used to having our hands on everything—controlling firewalls, etc. Suddenly, we had to hand it off to Microsoft and see what would happen.”
That motivated VCS Technologies to search for a partner in email security. Mark evaluated his current partners before turning to his network for recommendations. Ultimately, it was his sales representative at D&H that helped him. “The rep gave me all these options and demos. We looked at every big name in email security.”
Pricing was a top consideration for VCS Technologies because many of its clients had limited budgets. Mark was already raising rates by making the switch to Microsoft 365, and email security would be an additional expense.
“Finally, I asked our D&H rep, ‘Who would you pick? You know our business and how many clients we have. What’s a good option?” That’s when the rep introduced Mark to Vade. “I did the demo and off we went. I felt comfortable testing it out. With no long-term contracts, Vade made it easy to give it a try with no risk.”
WHY VCS TECHNOLOGIES CHOSE VADE
- Advanced AI-powered threat detection and response
- Cross-tenant incident response
- Free trial and monthly licensing
- Partner-first approach
- Native Microsoft 365 integration
THE SOLUTION
Immediately, Mark and his team saw the value of Vade for M365—and not just in terms of pricing.
“So, once you get past the price being a barrier, it’s about the relationship. Are you a solid partner who isn’t trying to poach our clients and who offers support when needed? After the relationship—which I believe is more important than the product—it’s the hassle factor for my techs. Are they spending too much time trying to make your solution work? With Vade, that was never an issue.”
Convinced of the product’s value, Mark and his team began switching all clients over to Vade for M365. Integrated with Microsoft 365, the email security solution complemented VCS Technologies’ existing security stack. That included the company’s privilege access management (PAM), endpoint detection and response (EDR), remote monitoring and management (RMM), and password management systems.
Vade for M365 is a collaborative email security solution for Microsoft 365. Powered by AI, enhanced by people, and made for MSPs, it features a collaborative AI engine that continuously learns from an alliance of more than 1.4 billion protected mailboxes, millions of daily user reports, and a team of cybersecurity analysts.
Vade for M365 makes email security simple for MSPs and sophisticated to threat actors. Combing robust capabilities with low-touch features, Vade for M365 offers MSPs maximal security through minimal effort. Key features of the email security suite include:
- Cross-tenant triage and remediation: Triage and remediate active threats and user-reported emails across all client tenants from a single pane of glass.
- Auto-Remediation: Continually scans mailboxes for new email threats and automatically removes them from user inboxes.
- Vade Threat Coach™: Delivers personalized and automated phishing awareness training when a user interacts with a phishing email.
- Threat Intel & Investigation: Triage and remediate user-reported emails, deconstruct files, and inject live email logs into any SIEM/SOAR/XDR.
- Vade Remote Browser Isolation (RBI): Protect mobile and desktop users from web-based attacks originating from email via a secure and remotely hosted browsing session.
- Native Splunk Integration: Export Vade for M365 email logs to Splunk without writing a single line of code.
RESULTS
With the full rollout of Vade for M365, Mark and his team observed a noticeable difference in his team’s operational efficiency. “For me, Vade is kind of like a ‘set-it-forget-it’ tool, which I really like. That’s how we make money, right? It just works,” said Mark. “Ultimately, we spend so much time managing Microsoft 365. Having Vade integrated through our partner center with Microsoft and being able to manage everything through there, it’s a huge time saver for our techs.”
But Mark and his team weren’t the only ones to realize the benefits of the switch. Clients also shared positive feedback about the solution’s ease of use and better experience.
“I have rarely ever seen a ticket go through to Vade’s tech support. And when I do, it’s usually answered easily, which is great,” said Mark. “Vade is a part of our security stack now and it’s non-negotiable. We won’t provide the Microsoft 365 service to clients without Vade—knowing that Microsoft leaves the platform too unprotected for me to sleep good at night.”
Since adopting Vade for M365, Mark and his team are once again operating at maximum efficiency while delivering top service quality.
“What separates us from our competitors is that we make a lot more money because we can keep our clients happy with a much, much smaller staff,” said Mark. “For the number of endpoints that we service, I think it’s pretty amazing what our team does.”
And in Mark’s view, Vade for M365 contributes to this competitive advantage. “It all goes back to the hassle factor. We’re not having to maintain the product, and when we have a problem, we’ve got a team that will fix it and get us rolling again. If I had to go back in time to when we were dealing with mail filter problems and spam categorization, we wouldn’t get anything done with as many mailboxes as we manage. So, it’s a huge thing for Vade to just take that load off us.”
Not surprisingly, VCS Technologies is growing. The company is building a new headquarters in Winona and looking to acquire another MSP. “The next phase is to spread our wings and see who’s out there for acquisition. It’s a big growth opportunity, just knowing we could bring onboard another 50 to 100 clients with the snap of our fingers. We’d be rolling them all into our security stack.”
I’m always looking for that niche vendor, that product that’s the best of breed, that fits our price point, that we can manage easily without a ton of labor. That’s Vade.
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