As hybrid work becomes commonplace amid the pandemic, many small businesses still aren’t sure how to support remote work like their big business counterparts. Fortunately, Tech Commandos has been specializing in facilitating hybrid work for years.
The company, an Act! ACC Sales Leader, Diamond Tier, helps small and mid-sized businesses move their infrastructure to the cloud so that they can focus on the business, not the tech. We recently spoke with Tech Commando’s CFO, Geri Davis, on how Act! contributes to that mission and supports small businesses in our evolving world of work.
Q: To start, please tell us more about Tech Commandos.
A: Tech Commandos started in 2002 and very quickly began offering Act! products. Our goal is to complement their products through a tailored approach to technology services.
Our customers are all different types of small businesses, from universities to casinos to manufacturers, with anywhere from 2 to 80 employees. When a customer buys Act!’s software, we customize the program so that it reflects their specific business model. We also offer middleware integrations, so if customers have a piece of software they need to be integrated with their Act! platform, we do that for them.
Q: What inspired Tech Commandos to invest in Act!?
A: Act! offers our customers an easy, sales-focused way to capture their employees’ activity. Whereas tools like Salesforce are created to support someone in a manager role, Act! helps people across the team, like the salesperson or whoever else is engaging customers.
We offer every version of Act! and work with customers to find which one works best for their specific business. For example, customers who have salespeople out in the field will likely want both the desktop and web-based version, whereas people who are remote and have constant internet access only need the web-based version. Our job is to educate customers on which solution they need.
We’ve grown our business with Act! for years and have become one of their largest U.S.-based partners. It’s been a great relationship as a result.
Q: What differentiates Tech Commandos from its competitors?
A: Our support. Put simply, we answer the phone when a customer calls.
More than that though, we have the experience that today’s businesses are looking for. To start, our team is used to working with businesses that have HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GLBA, and ITAR requirements and our facility is an SSAE 18 SOC 2 Type II Audited facility, so we understand how to keep organizations secure. Additionally, our focus is the cloud, so we are able to help customers succeed in the hybrid workplace.
Q: Speaking of the hybrid workplace, how have you seen customers’ business needs evolve during the pandemic?
A: During the pandemic, owners started looking at their typical expenses and questioning why they were paying for so much infrastructure—everything from rent and electricity to hardware and servers. As a result, we’ve seen a big increase in business for our cloud offerings. By putting their infrastructure on the cloud, businesses no longer need to manage these resources themselves.
Similarly, today it’s normal for companies to have employees in different geographies or even overseas—and this makes it more important than ever for the business owner to be able to control the network employees are operating on. The cloud makes a hybrid work environment a reality. For example, we put Act! into a cloud environment for customers so that users get the capabilities of the desktop software with the ease of a web-based one.
Q: What are the common misconceptions customers have about using cloud services? How do you overcome those?
A: This biggest fear of using the cloud is security, but the companies that fall to cyber threats are the ones that haven’t defended themselves adequately. A business is only as good as its last backup, so we help businesses create networks in the cloud that are fully backed up. We put the procedures in place to make sure customers are protected, like geofencing and two-factor authentication. Our team is also keeping up with how the landscape is evolving to make sure we’re able to best advise our clients. As new threats emerge, we update our offerings so that clients remain fully protected.
To learn more about how Tech Commandos can transform your Act! experience on the cloud, visit its website.
