Bits & Bytes

The BitTitan Blog for Service Providers

05/05/2020
Liz Behlke
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Streamlined Migrations Help SHI Serve Enterprise Customers

SHI International is a global solutions provider serving more than 15,000 corporate, enterprise, government, and academic organizations with hardware, software, and IT solutions. Launched in 1986, SHI has grown organically while maintaining private ownership. Their focus on nurturing customer relationships has resulted in an impressive 99% retention rate. SHI is headquartered in Somerset, NJ with major operations centers in Austin, TX, and Milton Keynes, UK.

Randall Wandover is Sr. Account Executive – Defense and Aerospace – Global specializing in IT infrastructures. He joined SHI in 2014 after more than a decade in computer, technology, and telecommunications account management. When one of Randall’s enterprise customers has a project that includes a migration, he always knows who to recommend.

“To be honest, I’m not an expert on migrations. But I know MigrationWiz will get the job done, and make me look good. The dedicated team at BitTitan provides the high level of service and support I expect for all my customers,” said Randall.

Premier partners working side-by-side

SHI is one of BitTitan’s premier partners, selling, reselling, and packaging MigrationWiz licenses to support their solutions. BitTitan’s partnership with SHI means working side-by-side on sales, proof of concept, problem solving, and service delivery. The team at SHI has also provided real-world feedback on features and functionality that the BitTitan product team has implemented to further improve MigrationWiz.

This kind of partnership is vital for serving the large, enterprise-scale organizations in Randall’s portfolio. After several years working with global retail and telecom businesses, he now manages accounts in aerospace and defense contracting. Using MigrationWiz allows SHI to complete migrations in a fraction of the time compared to manual processes, and it’s scalable based on project size, workloads, and data volume. This has tangible benefits beyond meeting deadlines and maintaining customer satisfaction.

Aerospace and defense contracting is particularly budget focused, driven to squeeze as much as possible out of each agreement. Using MigrationWiz decreases the amount of labor needed, and because time is money, this provides more pricing flexibility for the overall project. The bottom line is that SHI is able to win more projects and complete them profitably.

“SHI services are truly comprehensive, from planning large infrastructure projects to post-migration services like change management, training, IT governance, and compliance. Our long-standing customer relationships come from making sure every element is done with excellence in mind,” said Randall.

The perils of the DIY migration

SHI depends on MigrationWiz to streamline migrations, helping them complete projects faster with less user downtime. But there are alternatives.

“I’ve had clients decide to DIY an infrastructure project because their internal IT thinks it’s going to be easy,” said Randall. “They end up learning the hard way that lack of experience can spell failure on a catastrophic level. One client’s excess costs were in the millions of dollars. A year into it they came back to us because they still hadn’t completed the project.”

Another problem Randall has encountered is customers who believe MigrationWiz is too good to be true—that it couldn’t possibly automate the entire migration and work 100% remotely. They may have had experience in the past with a less well developed migration tool. Or they may have been convinced that they need to hire a service provider that specializes only in migrations.

“Some clients haven’t performed a migration in a few years, and they don’t realize that one tool can do it all for them, regardless of the scope,” said Randall. “For those clients, we work with BitTitan to do a proof of concept so we can validate that it will do the things that they want it to do.”

A team dedicated to SHI

Because SHI provides end-to-end solutions for large enterprise infrastructure projects, no one person can be an expert on everything. That’s where partnerships come in. Randall has full access to the team at BitTitan, spearheaded by Jennifer Cheer. When his customer has questions about capabilities or needs guidance for a unique situation, Jennifer can join a call or provide specific documentation.

“If a customer has a question about an issue or a particular use case, Jen will send a white paper on the topic or track down a resource. Communication is the key, and Jen is an excellent communicator,” said Randall.

Randall’s technical expertise is in hardware and infrastructure, and while he’s eager to learn more, he knows he can rely on BitTitan to back up every MigrationWiz license with the level of support his customers are looking for.

Growing together as partners

Navigating the last two years during the pandemic have been challenging for businesses in many ways. But projects needed to stay on track, and there was increased urgency to address remote work and security demands. Through it all, both SHI and BitTitan experienced healthy growth—a testament to the rewards of working together and staying flexible. As SHI customers responded to pandemic-driven demands, Randall knew MigrationWiz would make their transition to the cloud fast, safe, and easy.

Contact us if we can help you find a trusted solution provider like SHI, or if you represent a solution provider looking for a partner like BitTitan.

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