Aftermarket Auto Company Supports Monumental Growth with Hosted Velosio Managed Care Solution

Growth and Change

In 2019, an auto company experienced tremendous change. They were bought by an equity firm and many key individuals departed the company who were superusers on its Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP solution. Moreover, the organization was growing at a rapid rate—organically and via acquisition. Microsoft Dynamics GP was integrated with expense software Koppa for store purchases, but the team struggled with many manual processes. GP couldn’t handle the transactional volume, and it took more than an hour to post a check batch.

Their servers were hosted by a company that lagged with connectivity issues, leaving the team distrustful of the system up time or the data in it. There was corrupted data, procedural issues, and challenges with one of their auxiliary ISV solutions which caused data to misfire.

ERP Staff Augmentation and Azure

The organization asked Microsoft partner Velosio for help in augmenting their IT and ERP staff, converting the system over to Azure for stability, and contracted with Velosio Managed Services for support. Velosio started with data clean up, training new system users, new user set up, reporting, and day-to-day system maintenance. By filling the gaps in their ERP team, the client was able to take their time rebuilding their IT and leadership teams. Velosio serves as the next line of defense for their internal help desk. For new store acquisitions, Velosio’s Managed Services team helps with email migrations and setting up new users. With Velosio’s help, the team no longer feels buried, and the Azure-hosted environment means they are no longer kicked out of the system. As the organization continues to grow, the Azure cloud and Velosio’s Managed Services team helps them to be more successful.

Licensing Optimization

As the organization continues to grow through acquisition, it needs to ensure that its technology transcends throughout the organization. Velosio performed a licensing assessment for them to determine if they could bundle licensing for cost savings and remove duplicate group functionality, and cleanup Azure Active Directory groups. Some employees were over licensed for daily use of the system, and there were opportunities for shared mailboxes which are free of charge from Microsoft. Additional licenses which were unassigned could be cancelled. Velosio also identified the SQL server version that would benefit them the most. The client also streamlined licensing billing by switching over to Velosio and consolidated licensing and support in one bill. Velosio recommended that they deploy Microsoft 365 E5 licensing to achieve all the functionality they were looking for at a bundled, discount price – much more cost effective than a la carte pricing.

On an ongoing basis, Velosio is helping the organization right size their system as they add new members through acquisition, and frequently revisits the licensing structure to ensure system performance scalable storage capabilities. These accounts enabled the company to store and retrieve large volumes of data while ensuring data integrity and availability.

Security Improvements

In concert with the licensing recommendations, Velosio performed a security assessment for the organization as it rolled in new stores. The Velosio team ran a Microsoft Secure Score assessment against the tenant to generate a security posture score and offer recommendations. The Velosio team recommended that they complete enforcement of multi-factor authentication (MFA) across the organization and deploy Microsoft Intune for mobile device management (MDM) and bring your own device (BYOD) management. By deploying Intune, the client can better protect corporate content, and better manage users and devices, including devices owned by corporate as well as employee-owned devices. Now, if an employee leaves the organization, they can restrict access to corporate information from any device for increased security.

Data Integrity

Velosio’s team now maintains data integrity for the client each week, bringing stability and peace of mind to the team. A new AP aging report, which can be consumed with Microsoft Excel, easily demonstrates outstanding payables each month.

Velosio’s Managed Service team monitors, patches, and collaborates with the organization, ensuring system stability and uptime. In an advisory role, Velosio is involved in leadership meetings as the client makes decisions about its system roadmap, security issues and more. Next up, the client will upgrade their ERP system from Microsoft Dynamics GP, which has a limited shelf life for support.

Partnership & System Benefits

• Trust system up time and data integrity
• Rely on Velosio Managed Care for IT augmentation
• Saved money by right-sizing licensing
• Improved overall corporate security posture
• Solved data corruption, procedural issues and system environment challenges
• Streamlined new user set up to support acquisition and growth
• Ensures system best practices
• Backup for internal help desk