Premier Solutions Case Study
Overview
In its 100 years as a telecommunications provider for the northwest region of Iowa, Premier Network Solutions has continuously adapted its offerings as technologies have evolved and customer needs have changed. In 2009, the long-time Codero partner began offering IT consultation services after recognizing a need for expert IT implementation and management among its small business customers.
Now Premier Network Solutions is evolving its IT offering once again with the addition of Codero DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) and Cloud Backup in order to provide its customers with business continuity and disaster recovery, an important part of any IT management program.
Challenge
Premier Network Solutions’ IT consulting team employs six consultants who serve about 60 businesses throughout their service area. Their customers vary widely, from mom-and-pop shops with one or two computers to large organizations with 150-200 computers and 20 servers.
Despite their well-established brand, they knew they faced a great deal of existing competition in the IT consulting space in their region, and knew they would have to offer something truly superior to win new business in this realm.
“In our community, it’s about personal relationships,” Premier Network Solutions CTO Frank Bulk said. “We can do all the traditional marketing in terms of banner pages, billboards, and newspaper inserts, but the vast majority of the time if someone’s happy with their existing IT consultants, it’s hard to win the business away. We knew it was a better strategy to instead focus on building positive name recognition.”
Premier Network Solutions’ leaders began seeking new products and services that could help them extend their offering and better serve their customers.
“With Codero, we know we’re offering our customers some of the most reliable, full-featured Cloud Backup and DRaaS solutions”
– Frank Bulk, CTO
Solution
Having data security and backup measures in place is a critical part of IT infrastructure for companies, regardless of size or industry. Premier Network Solutions’ goal is to be a full-service technology solutions company, and that means providing critical recovery and cloud backup to go along with their online offerings.
Thanks to their partnership with Codero, Premier Network Solutions is able to offer Codero DRaaS and Cloud Backup services that can stand alone or be sold as part of IT bundles.
Codero DRaaS is flexible enough to meet the needs and budgets of Premier Network Solutions’ diverse customer base, as it allows businesses to decide how they want to deploy failover and is delivered as a physical and virtual appliance with DR software and flexible cloud storage targeting.
Premier Network Solutions’ customers also value the security provided by Codero Cloud Backup — a complete secure backup with encryption and protection across devices, as well as immediate alerts should any ransomware or other malware infiltrations take place.
The Premier Network Solutions team began promoting their new DRaaS and Cloud Backup offerings through a variety of avenues:
Adding the services to Premier Network Solution’s online store
Distributing packets to businesses and homes throughout their service area
Speaking at Chamber of Commerce meetings about the dangers of ransomware and how DRaaS can help
Including the product benefits in their regular sales discussions
Results
After less than one year selling Codero DRaaS and Cloud Backup, Premier Network Solutions is just getting started with these services but is already seeing early success that points to a promising future.
They have sold several terabytes of cloud backup and have been able to implement DRaaS for many of their key clients. Premier Network Solutions currently markets DRaaS and Cloud Backup as part of a bundle with other services, and that has proven to be a great way to upsell with their client base.
“One of the greatest strengths of this partnership is the care that Codero puts into designing its products” Bulk said. “With Codero, we know we’re offering our customers some of the most reliable, full-featured Cloud Backup and DRaaS solutions around, and they’re going to have a good experience if they ever have to recover data. We hope they never have to actually use the products, but the fact that we offer them elevates Premier Network Solutions in our customers’ eyes and gives them more peace of mind as they operate their businesses.”
