Today Bruce Marshall from Microsoft and I teamed up to present to the North Carolina Chapter of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) on technology readiness and Microsoft Office 365. SCORE provides mentoring and other resources to aspiring entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs understand the need for professional, reliable and cost effective technology infrastructure but many are not sure how to acquire it.
Therefore, Microsoft wants to make sure that the SCORE counselors are aware of
the
Office 365 platform and how it can help small and medium sized businesses reach
their goals. Microsoft engaged Acrowire to facilitate this knowledge sharing
session because of our deep experience with the platform. Acrowire has migrated
dozens of SMBs to Microsoft’s Cloud platform and knows first hand the
opportunities and challenges of doing so. In fact, Acrowire was recognized by PCWorld last Spring for some of the Cloud
work done in this space.
Bruce Marshall works as a Senior Business Development Manager on Microsoft’s Strategic Influencers team. SCORE is a very influential organization in the SMB space so this event will likely be the first of many. SCORE is a national network of 13,000 retired executives and is supported by the Small Business Association. The mentoring that SCORE provides helps entrepreneurs plan their business strategy and navigate the landscape. As such, having a solid understanding of what technology options are available for small businesses with limited resources is critical. Today we talked through some of the benefits of avoiding the path of buying expensive servers and hiring vendors to maintain them and considering a Cloud based platform instead.
There wasn’t an empty seat in the house and we are hopeful that the high turnout is a sign that counselors are eager to learn about how the Cloud can benefit their clients. Just about every small business needs email and Office 365 provides business class email at a very low monthly cost. Microsoft’s strong network of partners ensures that companies can get local support and guidance when needed. This is a significant differentiating factor when comparing Office 365 with other hosted solutions. Bruce and I were thankful for the opportunity to speak with SCORE about Office 365 today and hope that the dialog will be ongoing. Feel free to reach out with any questions or comments.
