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This episode of Tech Solutions for CUs is brought to you by Veritium. As a specialized cloud managed service provider, Veritium is disrupting the industry by completely eliminating upfront integration and installation fees. Their unique co-managed model ensures you retain full technology ownership, charging only a flat percentage of your cloud spend, so you pay for measurable outcomes rather than billable hours.

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And now here's the host of Tech Solutions for CUs, Finopotymus Publisher John Sanfilippo.

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Welcome to this episode of Tech Solutions for CUs. I'm your host, Finoponymus Publisher John Sanfilippo, and we are here today to talk about managed service providers. And we are lucky to have with us Claire Finkenbinder, who is the co-founder and chief revenue officer of an MSP Viridium. Thanks for being here, Claire. Thank you very much for having me, John. Now, what I was thinking is just to just to level set for everybody, I was thinking, I'm thinking that we could first talk about managed service providers in general and what an MSP does and kind of provide a definition and then kind of kind of move on to there just so to make sure everybody up front knows what we're talking about. So Claire, how would you define an MSP?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

That's a great question, John, because uh I'll define what you know I see as an MSP uh and then if I can um like to differentiate you know who Viridium is. You know, traditionally a managed service provider is a group of individuals that an organization, a credit union, would come to to you know uh outsource you know a particular you know function, tech stack, you name it, and they would manage that you know on behalf of the credit union. Um a lot of times you could take a look at that could be their help desk, that could be you know managing their server infrastructure, it could be managing their firewalls and their network. And depending on who they're working with, it tends to be a little bit of an all or nothing, you know, um solution set where you know the MSP will lock it down, they'll manage it because they they they're being held responsible for that, right? Or you know, they have to acquire everything, you know, from the MSP in a lease type, you know, or uh fashion. Um we're not that way, you know. I'm a previous CIO at a financial organization. What we are trying to do is really disrupt the MSP market and that um customers own their own environments. We're not looking to take that ownership away from them. Uh we're not looking to lock them out of their environments. Um if they want to lock themselves out, they can do so. We'll manage it for them. But we're really trying to co-manage these environments with our customers and enable them, right, if they should want to, to you know, develop the appropriate skill sets with the solutions we provide.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

So, how does that approach compare to other MSPs? What do what do how do uh most other MSPs do things and what makes you different in their suit?

SPEAKER_03 3:24

It might be best if I take a specific solution set and maybe you know describe that. So one of the things we do is we call this Viridian Cloud Networking. And essentially we'll come in and help organizations acquire, you know, telephony and data circuits. We'll help them install them, the you know, the the associated technology stack, routers, switches, firewalls, um, and then you know, manage them. A lot of the vendors we're going up against when an organization contracts with them, they're contracting the circuits with them, they're contracting the tech stack with them, and their services. So if they want to remove one or the other, they got to replace everything, which is extremely painful. We do not operate that way. We help the customer acquire their own circuits, we help the customer acquire their own gear, and then we manage that with them. So if the time comes, they want to replace any of those three things, including our services, they can choose and pick what they want to do.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Now, let me ask you this. I'm a credit union, I'm out shopping for an MSP. I find three MSPs that kind of do everything the same way as you just described, and then there's Viridium. Is it ever is it ever perceived as a negative that you're you're doing something different that nobody else is doing? I don't think so, John.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

And quite honestly, our biggest challenge is people can't you know have a challenge uh understanding our value prof because there's one big portion of our value prop that I haven't shared. We never charge for installation. So, you know, any of our installations, whether it be you know on the network side of the house or whether it be AWS cloud related, whether it be Azure Cloud related, you know, doing the architecture up front and doing the migration is where a lot of people actually focus to, you know, um, you know, earn their income as an integrator. We don't. Our value proposition is we do all that, you know, with no fee. Right. But then what a lot of organizations run into is where an MSP is so important, is we're there for the next defined amount of time to make sure that environment continues to run securely, efficiently, effectively. And then, you know, of course, in the middle of the night, if anything, you know, does go sideways because it's IT, it happens. We're there, you know, while you're at home and sleep in your bed, and we take those actions to make sure it continues to run and it gets resolved accordingly. So um, we think you should pay for outcomes, not not billable hours.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Okay. So and again, that varies from other MSPs.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Oh, absolutely. You know, where the one of the areas that we definitely differentiate ourselves from is uh, you know, other MSPs are gonna come in and charge a setup fee, uh, you know, an integration fee, depending on what the the solution set is they're doing. And we don't do that uh in any way, shape, or form. Our fees are based off of um we're a cloud MSP, so everything, just about everything we do is cloud related. You know, um, most of our charges, 99% of our charges are a flat percentage based off your cloud spend. And where that's important is where I said we're not gonna charge you to do a proof of concept to see if, you know, this artificial intelligence, you know, solution works, whether this BDI solution works, whether this, you know, moving a lot of people are dealing with the Broadcom, you know, increases in prices and looking for virtualization options, right? You know, we'll put all the money up front in our time and effort, right, to show you that this technology works. And then once it's up and running in the cloud, of course, you're gonna pay your cloud provider a certain amount for that monthly fee. We just charge a flat percentage of that off the next, you know, two or three years. But you're also getting us there to help you manage it, evaluate it, optimize it. You know, a lot of organizations too, uh, you know, one of the big things is is financial operations in the cloud. We're monitoring that that the cloud spend every day. We're looking to optimize that. And as I shared, we get a percentage of the cloud that also includes our price to our customers actually goes down. When we actually save our customers money and decrease their cloud spend, they're they're you know, what they pay to us goes down as well. And we do that because we want to be a true value partner. And then we also believe, you know, um then you know, hopefully we can show them that we can help them elsewhere. The the key here is if it's in the cloud, right? The technology stack gets in there, like most financial organizations, you know, mid-tier and below, are struggling with AI today and machine learning, you know, data analytics. They can't afford to put all these different skill sets on staff or to have them two or three deep. That's included with Berinium. You know, we have staff, you know, here in the US, we have staff in India that are actually berrinium employees, not subcontractors. We actually have staff in New Zealand, right? And it's a way to actually extend the skill sets you have available to you to actually test any of these technologies out that you want to do so.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

So as a co-founder, when you were getting this company going, you looked around, all these other MSPs were doing it one way. What made you think, hey, we could do it this whole brand new way?

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Well, that's a great, great question. Because I had to look in my in the mirror, you know, long and hard, you know, before we did this. And you know, as a CIO, you know, at the financial institution I was at, you know, anytime we wanted to do a proof of concept, or anytime we wanted to, you know, tackle something new, I would get this bill of of you know of sales or a quote, right? That all these hours and and so forth to to see whether or not, you know, you know, a specific solution set would work. So what we're trying to do is really disrupt the market and you know, take that risk on with the bank or or the credit union, excuse me. And uh, you know, oh here's a perfect example for you. We had a a financial institution in the northeast that wanted to look at alternatives to uh VMware VDI and Omnisso. Um, so we did. We successfully successfully, you know, did a proof of concept with workspaces for them and AWS, you know, the solution set. It worked, it was up and running, we got a flat percentage of that. A new CIO came in to their prerogative, wanted to go with Azure, and they turned it off. Well, for our contract, right? We spend all the time up front getting it up and running, they turned it off. Any percentage of zero is zero. So that's the risk that we took on ourselves. But guess what? We got other projects with that customer, right? Because we were a true partner, they were not locked in to a three-year contract of a minimum spend you know, um, or something they did not want to do.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

So I'm a I'm a credit union CTO. What what what are they what do I see, or what happens, what are the um issues that that I recognize that make me think maybe an MSP could solve this for me instead of me trying to do it myself.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

There's a couple things, you know, on that. The first thing that I I would share, um being a free CIO, uh, we did not have a CTO in my organization, is I know understanding what we need to do as an organization to differentiate ourselves. And one of the things that you know I realized, you know, uh as a CIO, and by the way, prior to that, I worked at Dell for many, many years. One of the things I realized very quickly is being able to configure hardware, manage hardware, installing an operating system, things of those natures. And you know, even managing my router switches and firewalls, extremely important, right? It's the architecture, it's the foundation everything stands upon. But having the best people to do that doesn't necessarily differentiate my organization, right? Um, it's the applications and the services they provide to my members, services they provide to my employees, and so forth. So, where do I really want to invest? You know, those resources, we all have limited resources, you know, to do so. And um, that's kind of where I looked at it, right? I wanted to focus on the applications and the services we were bringing to market and then find a trusted partner, you know, to manage those things that really didn't drive, they were very important, but didn't necessarily drive differentiation into our organization.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

So typically when a new client finds you, were they looking for one particular problem to solve, or were they just looking for someone to come in and kind of fix everything?

SPEAKER_03 12:18

So it tends to be a pain point, a specific pain point, and across the board, you know, it could be, you know, um a broadcom pain, you know, driven by the VMware renewals. They're looking for options. Uh, it could be something on the wider and networking side, looking in SD WAN. Uh, we have you know clients that come to us and look for our assistance with AI, you know, in leveraging, you know, different data sets that they have to drive meaningful data back to the business. Um, we did have one organization that came to us that really did not have the skill sets to set up the landing zone, you know, inside you know AWS. And they came to us to actually integrate their security and operational framework inside. But the one thing I would tell you, I don't think we have any clients. I'm gonna think about this, very few clients that have not then leveraged us for something else. Because, like I said, the the beauty to this is you get assigned with radium, you also get assigned what we refer to as a client success manager, really a technical account manager. Some of them have been uh the individuals that hold those roles, some of them are CIOs, some of them are long-term IT you know leaders, right? But the whole idea is they're members of your staff. If you have a pin point to discuss it with them and um you know see what solution sets are there to bring to the to help the organization accordingly. As I said, all that work up front to map technology or maybe to do a small POC, it's a nominal investment. We're gonna do our best, right, to make sure we don't take anybody down a wrong path because you know, um, we need it to be successful for us to be successful, but at the same time, too, we have a wide skill set here that a lot of organizations just can't afford to have on their own.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

So it sounds sounds like you're trying to be a true partner, and everybody talks, every vendor talks about being a true partner. And it you know as well as I do that that gets old after a while.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

It gets old. You know, uh it it it gets as old as the day is long. Um, what I would you know say is you know, you can go to our website uh and look at our our customer testimonials, and uh, you know, I'm very proud on the fact that uh most of them, well, some of them even say, you know, we've everyone says they're gonna be a partner. Bridium is that true partner uh that's there. And what's important is, you know, we do 90% of our business in the financial vertical, you know. Uh, so you know, you want to start talking about the uh the Fed, you want to start talking about core providers, you want to start talking about ATMs, you know, you want to start talking about all the regulations that we're forced to deal with, you know, all the time. You know, it's part of our DNA and what we do. So you want to start talking about those things, you're not gonna be talking to somebody who necessarily supports them. That's one thing. You're talking to individuals who have lived it, and that's a huge differentiator.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

So you mentioned uh regulatory issues. How big of a burden is compliance uh on your business?

SPEAKER_03 15:21

You know, so we're we're stock compliant on our side. So we have to go through that, you know, every 12 months. And and by the way, we we're using AI to help us with that. So a lot of people are, you know, we're continuously testing our systems 24-7, 365. So um, you know, I'm proud of that. Um, but what I would say is, you know, what we do in just about every you know um engagement we have, you know, we're looking at organizations' policies and procedures to make sure that, you know, once we, you know, roll out any of these new these new solution sets, you know, they adhere to that. And by the way, we also share, you know, where we think you know there might be quote unquote areas of improvement, right, to ensure that you know they're they're addressed.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Now, yeah, you mentioned AI, which was a perfect segue to my next question. Let's talk a little bit about AI, both in terms of how your company leverages it internally and how it affects your business the way your clients leverage it.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Yeah, so great. So the the first thing I would say, you know, about AI is and we we message this internally, you know, to our team. Everyone's gone through training, you know, from you know our operations staff to our sales staff, of course, our our technologists, you know, in a much, much deeper way. But the thing that I we tell our people all the time, we want them to leverage it in a responsible way, but what it does not do is um remove the responsibility of the output from them. Right. And I think that's the the key portion to anybody that that's looking to leverage AI today and is building out their AI governance policies. You know, whoever is leveraging it is needs to be the person responsible for the output. That does not inherit discipline. Um when I take a look at our clients then that are leveraging AI. Um, I I have my kind of uh a viewpoint to this. You know, it's a little bit you know unique. And I really think you know it's really, you know, especially when you're building out governance, it goes into three silos to an extent. You know, the the typical end user productivity, you know, tool sets that are out there, you know, making sure you have the right governance in place, making sure you have closed loop in place, making sure you're monitoring the systems to PIs, not you know, getting, you know, you know, um distributed, but end user productivity. Then the other portion is in governance now, almost every application claims that they have AI integrated, whether they do or not, right? Um, but they claim I can verify that.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Everybody I talk to does.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Yeah, everyone says they have it, right? So that has to be part of the governance. But then the area that we're talking about is, you know, the area where there's the gap. You know, you know, in one of our organizations, the gap was, excuse me, the gap was in marketing. They had disparate data systems with silos of data that they were pulling it in from the core, from a marketing database and others that we were now pulling in and building out custom LOMs to identify opportunities for the commercial sales team to go out and offer new products based off data that was there. And it's been driving, you know, uh a significant increase in productivity, you know, from their commercial sales staff on that aspect. But it's really, you know, I remember, you know, when big data was the talk of everybody out there, right? Everybody needed to have a data warehouse, everybody needed to have, you know, you know, a collection system and so forth that's out there. I agree, right? You know, to an extent, but it really needs to start with what questions you want to have answered. Well, you know, what or what what holes that are there? And it's a it's a continuous journey. When you finally are able to get one or two questions answered, it's gonna spawn three more. And then after that, it's gonna spawn more and it's gonna spawn more. That's what it's about, right? And in starting a journey, where do you start and go for it? You know, my big thing is and I would for most organizations, I would start off the shelf because it's the cheapest way to go. But on the flip side of the house, the biggest differentiator is gonna be those individuals that can find ways to use AI that others can't.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Now, you mentioned earlier about um your employees retaining responsibility for AI work output. And I've had a lot of conversations with people about human in the loop. And HITL seems like it's a custom-made concept for credit units because there's always been really touch touchy-feely in-person type type of uh organizations. So the idea of you know actively keeping humans involved with whatever's going on with AI seems very smart and very custom fit for credit units. Can you talk to me a little bit about your take on HATL?

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yes, I I think you know, when I think about this, you know, in a in a practical manner, you think about you know a customer service representative that's taking a call-in, you know, um, you know, versus a you know, a bot, you know, that that's you know generating automated responses, you know, that's out there. You know, I think you need to be quick to be able to transfer those things over, you know, accordingly. But you know, uh, if you have the ability to have AI, then you know, take the information they're asking for, then to take a look at you know similar clients that are out there, you know, and so forth. I think it's to me, I don't know if this is really gonna answer your your your question, John. It's about you know, um trying to bring value to that. So you you call in and you're starting to have a have a an issue with you know your your debit card, you know, or something of that nature. And then, you know, like internet, it can look at your spending patterns, it can look at, you know, or if you have a credit card where your limit is or so forth, to be able to come in and then offer you new types of products, you know, maybe a personal owner, so forth, bathe, so on. Or maybe you're you know, you're making a bunch of you know purchases for car parts, you know, maybe it's time for a new car, you know, so you use those to look at those types of transactions to actually do some type of of uh you know deterministic, you know, offering, right, to something that might, you know, bring value to the organization.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Sure. Now remind me again how long you've been in business.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

So the the the the founding organization was established in uh 2007, I believe. Right. Uh and then the organization grew. Significantly. Probably the biggest accomplishment of this organization could be a tie to is you know PPP. Round two of that of that effort was by our parent organization, was driven through some efforts that were there. And we grew out of that trying to bring those types of uh you know solution sets out to the market.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Now let me ask you this. We've reached a point, and it's it's kind of funny that um we've reached a point where if if your company is older than 10 minutes, you're considered legacy and the the new guys on the block frame that as a negative thing. Do you ever run into that?

SPEAKER_03 22:46

Where we're in the fact that you're so as I mentioned, right in 2007, you know, it was started. We actually spun out from that organization on Beridium and brought all the history, you know, the original founder of Summit Technology Group, which is what it was, to now Beridium. Um, you want to take a look at our organization and our new model that we've brought to the market is about less than two years old. So we reinvented ourselves, right, and taking all that goodness we've done since 2007 into this new organization. Because as we sat down and we talked about building this organization, the first thing I said is number one, the market does not need another MSP, the market does not need another cloud integrator. Right. So how do we build something different that the market needs? And it's how we go to market, how we and how we justify you know the expenditure that we you know present to our customers. If we do not provide you value, like everybody else, and that solution set's not running, and you turn it off. If I'm charging you a percentage of that solution set, and that's the beauty of cloud, I can turn it up and turn it down. Last I saw any percentage of zero is zero. So we're not providing you measurable outcomes or value to your organization. Regardless of what the duration of the contract is, we don't put you know necessarily a significant minimal spend or anything in any contract. You the customer remains in control.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

So, last question from me is is, and I ask this if everyone I want you to reach into the table, pull out your crystal ball, and give me a prediction.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Uh on any context?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Any anything you want. It could be the baseball season, whatever, whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Well, I I may hurt myself. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan, but I'll I'll stay off that topic.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Um Siri Ani is from my hometown, Jamestown, New York. Outstanding.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Outstanding. Um, I think you know, the prediction is we're just on the tip of what AI can do. I think, you know, um, you know, it's not going to be one of these things that, you know, you know, dissipates in anytime soon. It's just going to continue to grow. And there's organizations that find a way to leverage it to differentiate themselves, is going to be important, but you're going to have to have the governance there also, right? To protect it. So, you know, at least in my you know, my view, you know, you can take a look at you know the different advents that have been out there, at least in the the recent centuries, right? You know, I I really, you know, liking it too. If you take a look at, you know, fusion, the atomic bomb, and you take a look to the the invention or the uh uh of the rollout of the internet, how it had an impact on how we live, still have the same significance. And uh you've got to embrace it.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

And then I guess I lied, that wasn't my last question because you made me think of another one. And that is, I've heard a number of people say you got to keep in mind that AI will never be worse than it is right now, it will only get better from here, and you can say that every single day. And I guess my question that I want to ask you as the uh co-founder and one of the leaders of your company is how do you keep up with that? It will you make a decision based on what AI does today, and then oh, here's tomorrow, it's doing something completely different.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

I think number one, no, not any one person can keep up with it. It's about the team, right? Right, right. So we take a lot of direction from our our customers, we take a lot of direction from our our employees. Um and you know, we you've got to take both, you've got to marry the two together, right? We have a lot of great technologists here, but it's not about the technology, it's about the value that technology, you know, uh provides to the members and and the the uh the employees and so forth. So uh it's it's a strain, you know, on everybody, right? But um I think the other thing is trying not to be everything to everybody and being very you know focused on what what you do. But you know, I'll use the old DC Comics, you know, adage when it comes to AI, right? For great power comes great responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

And that's you know something that we all really need to make sure that we're embracing as as we move forward.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

So what's the one one thought you would like to be on people's minds as they finish listening to this podcast? What's what's what's the one big takeaway?

SPEAKER_03 27:27

You know, you have options, you have an organization that goes to market completely different than anybody you've you've worked with in the past. Um, you know, you give us you know 15 minutes to have a conversation, and you'll quickly see how you know we do differentiate you know from ourselves and and try to be a true partner. Everyone says it, right? You know, just like you know, we we hear this all the time too. Came from a financial institution. It's our relationships, really, that that differentiate us as a financial institution. You know, um, we're really trying to take that and make that different, right? You know, everyone says they're a partner, but how do we build this organization? We put our money where our mouth is. We are a partner.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

Okay, great. Well, I appreciate you being here with us today, Claire. Um, thanks for your time.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

No, I really appreciate it, John, and uh I'm looking forward to uh a successful relationship, you know, uh as we move forward.