IT Service Provider saves money & becomes proactive

Moonhill saves time and money thanks to greater visibility into computer environments and proactive IT

Introduction

Moonhill lacked good visibility into the computer environments they manage, and that made solving issues challenging. With Applixure, they got the visibility they needed to be more proactive and were able to save time and money.

About Moonhill's Services

Moonhill is a Finnish IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) that offers comprehensive services ranging from consulting to hosting services, security, and moving. Moonhill's way of working is agile and flexible, and they have companies of all sizes as customers. Their operations are based on a strong customer orientation, which has been a source of long-lasting customer relationships.

Moonhill works with companies ranging from law firms to gaming to construction companies. Moonhill is a little bit differently than most MSPs in that they do not focus on day-to-day hands-on IT support. Instead, they are primarily a consultant for client companies to help them find problem areas.

In addition, Moonhill offers moving services. When a customer moves to a new location, Moonhill coordinates the renovation of the new office space, and sets up all the IT infrastructure so that customers’ employees can start working productively in the new spaces from day one.

Tommi Saarela, Senior IT Manager at Moonhill, has extensive experience in the IT industry. His main areas of responsibility are IT security projects, larger system takeovers, and consulting.

“I drove the decision to bring Applixure to Moonhill. I have used Applixure at two previous companies that I worked for and knew that it could help us here too.”

Piloting was quick and easy

It was Saarela who brought Applixure to Moonhill. He received a phone call from Applixure. The timing was perfect. He had noticed issues in client IT environments which were hard to get a handle on, and also some specific issues which kept cropping up with different end-users.
Saarela had used Applixure at his previous workplaces and knew it could help with these kinds of issues. The decision to bring Applixure to Moonhill was easy. Saarela recalls:

“I drove the decision to bring Applixure to Moonhill. I have used Applixure at two previous companies that I worked for and knew that it could help us here too.”

Though Saarela had used Applixure before and was sure it would be useful at Moonhill, he still needed to get his colleagues on board. A brief internal pilot quickly convinced them that Applixure works and provides value. Saarela explains:

“I did the first pilot with my own equipment so I could sell it inside the company, to my colleagues. After it had been running for a few days, we could already see useful data: ‘Look Otto, your computer is out of memory’ and ‘look Antti, your warranty ran out two years ago’. It was easy to justify getting Applixure based on even this limited pilot.”

Visibility into Computer Environments & Proactive IT

Today Applixure is an important tool for Moonhill because it provides visibility into their customers’ computer environments. Saarela is the main user of both Analytics and Workflow and reports his findings from Analytics to the customer’s IT support or MSP. If needed, Moonhill can also help in fixing issues.

The features Moonhill uses the most are tracking warranty information and identifying issues with software. Saarela explains:

“What we needed Analytics for was to get clarity around vague issues going on in the customer environments. We needed visibility of what is causing the issues. In addition, we wanted predictability: to notice issues before the end-users do. We also use Analytics to keep customers up to speed on how well computers are working, whether warranties are valid, and whether there are specific computers or software that are causing issues.”

Intuitive and Easy to Use

One thing that Saarela really appreciates about Applixure is how easy it is to implement and use. He explains:

“Applixure’s ease-of-use stands out. I value tools which I can figure out quickly and on my own, and Applixure is one where implementation is quick, and you almost immediately understand what the tool is all about.”

Applixure Workflow Is a Must-have for MSPs

Applixure Workflow is an add-on to Analytics. It takes data from Analytics and turns it into concrete tasks which are managed in a Kanban-style board. Tasks can be assigned to team members and include a list of all devices affected by that particular issue.

Before starting to use Workflow, Saarela, who is the main user of Applixure, went through Analytics’ reports on a monthly basis. Now Moonhill has automated the process with Workflow, which reports per customer each issue in the IT environment, whether the issue generates work or if it is a recognized issue, which is just accepted.

If it is not an accepted issue, then it is directed forward. In most cases, the client companies have an internal IT Support team or an outsourced partner who can fix the issues. If this is not the case, Moonhill offers their clients the option to have Moonhill resolve the issue.

Thus, Workflow has become a valuable tool for Moonhill because it automates the identification, processing, and reporting of problems in each IT environment. That’s why Saarela is happy to recommend Workflow for any MSP:

“If you are a service provider, Workflow is the perfect tool for you. You only need a ticketing system in which you can make the tickets, but otherwise you have a complete tool that constantly tells you what is going on. I see that the visibility Applixure brings to the customer base is excellent.”

Time Savings: from 10 hours to one!

Applixure has saved Moonhill and its customers lots of time and money. Before Applixure, investigating problems in the computer environment took a lot of time and involved manually digging into the data in individual computers, the network, or the server.

Customers used to call Moonhill when problems arose and if the customers' own IT couldn't get to the root of the issues. When accurate data was not available, Moonhill had to ponder where the source of the problem was, and the process took a lot of time. Now Applixure has changed the situation. Saarela describes the time savings:

“If before we spent ten hours on something, now it has shrunk to an hour. No customer has ever complained about getting a line item on the bill for Applixure, but rather the opposite - they have been extremely satisfied that the cost is this small, versus what the size of the bill used to be.”

Saarela sees that Analytics and Workflow are extremely valuable tools especially for service providers who are responsible not only for their own computers, but for the computer base of all customers, which is difficult to gain visibility into without a proper tool.

To other MSPs who manage a large computer base, he sends greetings that Applixure is an excellent option:

“For a service provider, Applixure brings an incredible view of the computer mass. When we talk about the company's internal IT, it's a completely different thing to manage your internal information, but if you have, say, 20 customers, creating an overall picture is very difficult.”

Customer Support from Applixure

Saarela is happy with the communication between Applixure and Moonhill and appreciates that Applixure is open to development ideas. He has also been happy with his Customer Success Manager, Paavo. He explains:

“Now, there is a person who is easy to approach and who manages to keep in touch. We're not a big customer in terms of these license amounts, but they manage to listen to us too, and that's a big thing for us.”

Customers Appreciate Proactive IT

Saarela has received a lot of positive feedback from customers when they notice Moonhill has been able to proactively identify and solve problems in the computer environment. Saarela explains:

“It feels good to be able to call a customer or send them a message that ‘I've noticed you are having lots of problems with Adobe Acrobat’, and ask if we can look at your machine. Then the customer asks how we knew, and I’m like ‘here’s the thing, we monitor your environment.’ The customers thank us for keeping an eye on things and proactively addressing issues before the call comes to their internal IT or Service Desk. And we have a lot of customers whose environments we monitor where they will never know we’ve done something, that we’ve solved an issue before it escalated to the point where it interferes with daily work. I see Applixure as a great tool for enabling proactive IT."

About Business Finland's Jarmo

Jarmo Jonninen is responsible for Business Finland's system development, end-user services and devices as well as information security.

Jarmo Jonninen

IT Manager

Business Finland

Moonhill is a Finnish IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) that offers comprehensive services ranging from consulting to hosting services, security, and moving. Moonhill's way of working is agile and flexible, and they have companies of all sizes as customers. Their operations are based on a strong customer orientation, which has been a source of long lasting customer relationships.

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Case Moonhill: Saving Time & Money with Proactive IT