Tag Archives: AVG Business

AVG

Revolutionize Your Business with AVG Managed Workplace

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This year, we’ve put a laser focus on simplifying managed services to see how we can help our AVG partners fulfill their service contracts in an efficient and profitable way.

Seeing is believing.  And that’s why we let our early adopter partners be the judge of our newest release, Managed Workplace 10. They were impressed, we hope you will agree.

It’s time to step away from your 30+ checklist of onboarding items – we’re about to tell you how you can align your SLAs with your service delivery models and get your onboarding process down to a few simple clicks.

AVG Business has just launched Managed Workplace 10. This is our new, simplified service delivery platform that allows MSPs to standardize the configuration and onboarding of multiple customer sites.  We’ve designed the platform to align with the way MSPs do business. You can now standardize service delivery, quickly configure and onboard clients, reduce manual configuration, eliminate errors, drive efficiencies and more.

Managed Workplace 10 is a completely new platform that changes the way that an RMM helps drive profitability for your business.  Our partners will now have access to an RMM solution that gives them a centrally planned and automated way to cover those checkboxes and implement services, upgrades or changes, in a simple, applied way.

Here are a few highlights:

  • Fast, simplified deployment: With an onboarding process of only five clicks, you can get new customer sites up and running in under 30 minutes. You’ll also be able to deliver standardized service offerings right out of the box. Easily turn on or off services as required or create new services for client sites. Without missed steps or manual processes.
  • Service delivery model: Easily choose the mix of services that match your clients’ needs, uptime and budget. We’ve taken the industry’s three familiar reactive, proactive and fixed fee service models, added our key Managed Workplace features, and integrated these directly into our services platform.
  • Action-based dashboard: Add new services in minutes, deliver enhanced service levels and increase sales through our new single pane of glass, action-based services dashboard.

 

Managed Workplace 10 is the latest proof point to our mission to simplify the experience of securing businesses and deliver security products that meet our partners’ needs.

Sign up today and join the Managed Workplace revolution!

AVG

Onboard in 5 clicks, not 50 steps

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Most managed service providers (MSPs) follow a similar process for onboarding new customers for managed services.  This typically starts with understanding your customer’s true business needs and then reflecting those needs and the required services into your service delivery platform.

Sounds like a straightforward approach, yet the reality is often not so easy or quick. Customers have unique needs based on the nature of their organization and current IT infrastructure. This can transform onboarding into a complicated, multi-step process.

For example, how much of a priority is the stability and uptime of one group of devices versus another group or what security precautions need to be put in place to protect your customers? How will the answers to these questions and others effect which aspects of the remote monitoring and management (RMM) solution you turn on and which you leave off?

Today’s RMM solutions are extremely powerful, but all too often it is that power that breeds complexity. This requires MSPs to commit a lot of time to configuring, tweaking, twisting and covering the necessary checkboxes at exactly the right stage.

One MSP recently told me that he has a 35-40 item checklist to complete in order to onboard a customer and begin delivering services. Managed services platforms are meant to simplify your lives and make it easy to deliver service to your customers – 40 steps toward implementation isn’t a simplified experience.

With so many checkboxes and onboarding steps, one moment’s distraction is all it takes for a step to be missed and suddenly your RMM solution isn’t fulfilling the necessary criteria. Complicating this, as the IT provider, you are still on the hook with the customer to deliver the services you committed to initially. And now you need to rely on manual processes to satisfy those needs. This starts an endless cycle of firefighting as customers’ IT needs grow and more and more manual processes pile up.

We have a plan to change this.

Next month, AVG Business will release a next generation RMM platform focused on a new service delivery model that allows you to standardize the configuration and onboarding of multiple customer sites. This will dramatically minimize the implementation steps required for the customer onboarding process as well as achieve a standardized service delivery model.

For the first time, the channel will have access to an innovative RMM solution that will give them a centrally planned and automated mechanism to cover those checkboxes and implement services, upgrades or changes in simple, applied way.

This type of centralized automation delivers amazing benefits. Imagine the ability to deliver unique service offerings within one standardized service delivery platform. Your clients will gain a scalable solution to address their security challenges. You will gain the tools to retain new clients, onboard those clients quickly and grow your revenue.

Tune in next month to find out more about the new platform and how you can add it to your security product portfolio.

AVG

Introducing the New AVG Partner Certification Program

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AVG has seen the role of our channel partners evolve from being “solutions providers” to “trusted advisors.” We believe this is a critical transition that our partners must make; and one that requires the ability to make “consultative sales.”

To do that, partners need to be able to put any product or service recommendation into a broader business context while demonstrating measurable ROI.

It also requires more in-depth knowledge of their product portfolio than ever before.

Partners have told us they need a fast, efficient, and systematic approach to knowledge acquisition and skills development – coupled with ongoing support on multiple levels. They want to be able to ramp-up quickly on AVG products and technologies, clearly understand our product value propositions and how to position these with customers.

Our answer to this need is the AVG Partner Certification Program (PCP) – a certification program that rewards each partner for developing their knowledge.

The PCP has three tiers: Select, Premier, and Elite. Each tier provides additional benefits based on the number of individuals who achieve certification. For example, Elite level requires the certification of 3 Engineers and 3 Sales professionals.

Certification is achieved through on-demand Technical and Sales Training.

Partners who pass all course assessments of our Fundamentals training become an AVG Certified Technical Associate or AVG Sales Associate.

This program is an important element of our strategy to help partners sell, cross sell and upsell our product portfolio and continue activating and retaining new partners.

Please visit our AVG Partner Portal today.

AVG

APH improves margins, drives revenue with AVG Business solutions

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One of the things I enjoy about my role is receiving feedback from our AVG partners. A recent example is APH in the UK.

The team at APH was ready to take a more modern and proactive approach to their operations. But one challenge was the ability to expand their customer base – 110+ small-and-medium businesses operating in the distribution, manufacturing, engineering and services sectors – with the same APH staff of 15.  The team had to be able to close the loop on the better management and delivery of a complete managed services solution.

AVG Managed Workplace and its integrated Premium Remote Control, plus the quality of the technical and sales support from AVG Business, convinced APH to migrate its entire base of managed service clients from a standard antivirus product to the full-service AVG Business solutions platform.

Chris Carter, the Technical Infrastructure Consultant at APH, explains how APH’s move to AVG CloudCare and AVG Managed Workplace is a win for their clients and for them: “AVG AntiVirus picks up more threats than other products we were using, plus the AVG Business stack gives us wider, proactive control over the complete infrastructure at our client sites.”

As a trusted technology partner, we provide the support our partners need to confidently build relationships with their clients.  Chris is being supported by his AVG partner account manager who “wants to know where we’re trying to take our company and is helping us decide which services and features of the AVG Business stack can strengthen our customers’ infrastructure while creating profitable, long-term revenue streams for us.” 

Having completed the first phase of the AVG Business rollout, APH is now able to pre-empt client system faults as it takes advantage of AVG’s single pane of glass view, its automatic network discovery and monitoring, remote management and network audit reports.

And next, the remote, automation and reporting capabilities of the AVG Business solutions will allow the APH team to better schedule PC maintenance, coordinate patch management and control the rollout of Windows updates.

As Chris explains, APH has made the decision to “cover the cost of client installations because within a year we’ll be supporting only one product. We have higher profits from the new licences because the margin difference between where we were and where we are now with AVG Business is significant.”

Chris also says the detailed reporting within AVG Managed Workplace “will allow us to see what’s happening with all assets on every customer site and give us the opportunity to upsell services.”

Where are they headed as an AVG channel partner? There are no limits.

AVG

Glideslope drives growth from a niche customer base

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Many of our channel partners are driving successful businesses by building their reputations from a niche customer base – by proving their understanding of those clients’ special needs they grow a portfolio of very happy, referenceable sites. Here’s how one partner is using our AVG Business AntiVirus and Internet Security solutions to ensure its not-for-profit customers can operate virus and spam free and focus on their valuable work.

Glideslope Software Ltd, in Manchester, England, has developed highly specialized expertise in delivering quality IT support to charitable organizations. Now, with those services underpinned by the right security solutions, Glideslope is leveraging customer satisfaction to get a foot in the door at other businesses.

To give you an idea of the security issues, some of Glideslope’s charity customers have as many as 12 administrative sites and hostels, with staff travelling between locations and who introduce data to the network from a risky mix of devices and memory sticks. The problem is how best to secure and manage the data of geographically dispersed sites, as well as staff who are operating on disparate and often ageing hardware. Data security is further complicated by UK’s strict laws covering end client privacy and the use of cloud-based services. And, of course, every proposal has to deliver the greatest value for the money.

Glideslope’s answer to bringing a consistent level of service to all its client organizations has been to install AVG Internet Security Business Edition and AVG AntiVirus Business Edition. As its clients’ current policies expire, Glideslope is migrating all 35 of its regular clients – with 1,000 end users – to AVG Internet Security Business Edition or AVG CloudCare, depending on the best fit.

John Miller, Glideslope Software’s Director, describes his approach: “We see efficient IT support as the key to our clients’ growth, agility and happy employees. For our charity sector customers in particular, AVG Business solutions are essential in ensuring they can operate virus and spam free so they can seamlessly and effortlessly continue their valuable work.”

He’s also pretty pleased with how the AVG suite is helping his operations: “AVG works brilliantly in the background, so no calls from clients checking on pop ups. The admin console shows us which machines have problems. The Anti-Spam plug-in removes over 2500 spam emails before they reach end user machines. And I can’t remember the last time a client called to say they’d found a virus that AVG had missed. Everyone saves time and money.”

So, while areas of specialization can create differentiators for you in the marketplace, what every channel partner needs to do is back that expertise with quality services, at an affordable price, and a trusted, knowledgeable team.

AVG

Protecting business against the new “Locky” ransomware threat

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Ransomware attacks are on the rise and it is quickly becoming all too real for many businesses and organizations who aren’t prepared.  As new threats continue to emerge, our AVG channel partners play a critical role in helping their clients avoid the negative business impact from security threats like ransomware.

For several years now, ransomware, a type of malware that encrypts files and demands a ransom for the decryption key (usually in the form of a Bitcoin payment), has been on the steady increase. And in recent news, IT pros have just identified an even deadlier ransomware, dubbed “Locky.”

Incidents of recent ransomware attacks in the UK and U.S. have also sparked a media cycle, which in itself may drive further attacks.  One of these latest ransomware victims has reportedly been a U.S. medical center, which paid $17,000 to gain back control of its computer systems.

With smaller companies becoming attractive targets to cybercriminals due to their perceived lower levels of protection, no one is immune to the danger of ransomware or the latest Locky malware.

This also means that your end customers will require an increased level of service and expect your immediate response to their security needs. If your business is focused on security protection for SMB customers, isn’t it time you refreshed your antivirus and Internet security offering?

AVG has been working in the security space for over 25 years and our award-winning AVG AntiVirus and AVG Internet Security business solutions continue to benefit from the full force of this expertise.

Offering cloud-based, real-time Outbreak Detection and proactive AI Detection, the solutions deliver robust protection. Real-time Outbreak Detection is AVG’s new crowd intelligence that’s designed to identify even the newest malware variants and outbreaks in real-time. AVG’s Artificial Intelligence detection proactively identifies malware 24 hours a day 7 days a week – even before samples have been analyzed by AVG’s Virus Lab team. For example, our technology is also already detecting known variants of Locky.

These are just a few of the advanced features that help our partners respond to these new security demands and we are continuing to receive positive feedback.

John Miller, Director of Glideslope Software, is one AVG partner putting our AVG AntiVirus and AVG Internet Security business solutions to great work for its client base. As John shared with us recently, “We see efficient IT support as the key to our clients’ growth, agility and happy employees. For our charity sector customers in particular, AVG is essential in ensuring they can operate virus and spam free so they can continue their valuable work. I can’t remember the last time a client called to say they’d found a virus that AVG had missed.”

Help us put the best security defense in place for today’s businesses. We will continue to share updates on new AVG Business product features and services.

AVG

Six things to think about in the new year

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Here are six things to think about for this year, with business security strategy top of mind…

1. Artificial Intelligence keeping us safe online
Artificial intelligence and machine learning isn’t just about robot dogs and self-driving cars. The latest AVG Business anti-malware products contain a number of sophisticated neural learning and cloud-data collection techniques designed to catch malware earlier and more often. Expect to hear more through 2016 about how artificial intelligence will help transform security solutions to help keep malware at bay.

2. Certificate Authorities: beginning of the end
SSL continued to be a big talking point in 2015 with further vulnerabilities being disclosed. This year the debate will continue around certification, development of new open standards and easier choices for website owners. Every news story about certificate mismanagement, security mishaps, and data breaches puts Certificate Authorities under increasing scrutiny. For many small businesses, the website owners paying a Certificate Authority and submitting themselves to what can sometimes be an arduous verification and checking process, is cumbersome and unnecessary.

This is where technical alternatives like Let’s Encrypt (currently in beta) are bound to flourish.

Additionally, Google’s Certificate Transparency project will continue to identify rogue SSL Certificates through detections built into modern day web browsers, as Google continues to hold Certificate Authorities to account – helping keep us all safer.Lastly, with the promise of other solutions such as the Internet Society’s proposed DANE protocol, offering the ability for any website owner to validate their own SSL certificate and therefore bypass a Certificate Authority altogether, 2016 will be an interesting year to watch!

3. Malvertising, Ad Networks: shape up, or ship out
Malvertising is what happens when malware is served up to innocent web site visitors; it’s happening all too frequently and is caused by questionable third party relationships and the poor security of some online advertising networks. At the root of this problem is the “attack surface” of ever-growing, ever-complex advertising and tracking “scripts” provided by ad networks and included by publishers (often blindly) on their websites. The scripts are slowing the browsing experience and anyone who has installed an ad blocker recently will tell you they can’t believe how fast their favourite websites are now loading. Research conducted by The New York Times showed that for many popular mobile news websites, more than half of the bandwidth used comes from serving up ads. That’s more data from loading the ads, scripts and tracking codes, than the content you can see and read on the page!

Whatever the solution, one thing is for certain, Ad Networks need to shape up and address their security, otherwise 2016 may well be remembered as the year of Malvertising.

4. Augmenting passwords with extra security steps in 2016
The need for strong passwords isn’t going anywhere in 2016. There were reminders in 2015 that even having the world’s longest smartphone passcode doesn’t mean someone can’t figure it out.

This year, there will be growing use of extra steps to make accessing data safer. In 2015, Yahoo announced a security solution using mobile devices rather than a password for access, and we even saw Google include Smart Lock features that can use the presence of other nearby devices to unlock your smartphone. Two-factor authentication – using two steps and ‘something you have and something you know’ to verify someone’s identity – will continue to be popular for use by many cloud-based providers looking to avoid data breaches.

5. The Internet of Things needs security by design
Every device seems to be getting smart – in the home and in the office. You’re likely going to be using your smartphone as a “lifestyle remote” to control a growing array of devices. Being able to set the office temperature remotely, or turn on the kettle in the communal kitchen without leaving your desk may sound helpful, but the devices have the potential to give up WiFi keys. Every unprotected device that is connected to a network is open to hacking. Cyber criminals are probing hardware, scanning the airwaves, and harvesting passwords and other personal identity data from wherever they can. So the advice is simple: every connected innovation needs to be included in your business-wide security.

6. Update and upgrade or face the financial and legal consequences?
Upgrading and updating all your software, devices, gadgets and equipment remains a vital business issue. The Internet of Things is raising new questions about who is responsible for what in a legal sense. Who owns data? What happens when machines take “autonomous” decisions? Who is liable if something goes wrong? To take one extreme example, a police officer pulled over one of Google’s driverless cars in November for causing a traffic jam on one Californian highway by driving too slowly. Again, the lesson is clear. The simple rule this year is to ensure that your business software and systems are always using the latest update. Your life may not depend on it, but your livelihood might.

So these are my six “thinking points” as we head into 2016.

Here at AVG, we look forward to helping you keep security front and center for your business this year. For more information on AVG Business security solutions that keep devices, data and people protected every day, across the globe, visit http://www.avg.com/internet-security-business.

AVG

Bluecom Buys Big from AVG Business

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2015 has been a big year for AVG Business. Our worldwide community of partners has been supporting businesses in cities across the globe, giving their customers the reassurance that their applications and data are protected on any device, anytime, anywhere.

I’m excited to welcome a new partner, Bluecom, to our AVG Business network. Stockholm-based Bluecom, a rapidly-growing IT service provider, has recently chosen AVG Managed Workplace to manage network monitoring, control and automation for its small and medium business customers throughout Sweden.

This represents the largest order of the year for AVG Business in the Nordics region.

According to Bluecom CEO Robert Sjöholm, after conducting tests with several solutions on the market, AVG Business was selected because our product had the breadth Bluecom needed, “AVG Managed Workplace has all of the major functionality, while being more user-friendly than other products on the market we tried.”

Bluecom has already seen a positive effect on its sales since it started using AVG Managed Workplace, with Sjöholm noting that, “The reports we get from Managed Workplace are so good that we can often see flaws in customer systems that are unknown to them.”

AVG Business solutions like AVG Managed Workplace are a great example of how we are listening to our partners and responding with powerful security solutions to help partners proactively manage and monitor their customers’ networks and automatically deploy and update critical security tools.

With Managed Workplace 9.2, released in September, we move one step closer to a complete, end-to-end IT and managed security solution. The Managed Workplace platform streamlines IT management for our partners, providing ease of use, security and control of the entire IT infrastructure (devices, applications and networks) from a “single-pane” of glass. With premium remote control integrated at no additional cost to the remote monitoring and management platform, partners also gain cost savings as well as reporting tools to streamline billing and demonstrate client ROI.

Visit http://www.avg.com/partners to find out more about our AVG Business solutions and how we can help your business.  We look forward to sharing new products and services with you in 2016.

Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year!

AVG

Making the case for channel-delivered cybersecurity

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For our AVG partners and distributors these findings may not come as a surprise, but it presents another opportunity for the channel to help fill these security gaps with value-added solutions, best practices and excellent customer service.

According to the topline results of the survey, 36% of global organizations lack confidence in their ability to detect sophisticated cyber attacks. Linked to this, 36% don’t have a threat intelligence program, and 18% don’t have identity and access management programs – little wonder then that 69% thought that their IT security budgets should be increased by half.

Protection from cyber attack should be a priority for all businesses and as the EY data has shown, many organizations could benefit from the guidance of the channel. AVG partners, including A+ Computers and Services, DB Computer Solutions, MCC Computers Ltd., SortMyPC and many more, are already addressing the gaps using AVG Business products.

Channelnomics editor Jessica Meek also highlighted findings from the EY survey in her recent article, again, emphasizing the opportunity for the channel to help IT professionals prioritize security, provide solutions and services, and also act as trusted advisors on industry developments.

A few key stats to note:

  • 88% of respondents did not believe their information security infrastructure fully meets their organization’s needs
  • 57% said that the information security function suffers from a lack of available talent
  • 47% said they don’t have a security operation center
  • 54% said they lacked a dedicated function to focus on the impact of emerging technologies

AVG Business products like AVG Managed Workplace and AVG CloudCare are great examples of how our partners are using end-to-end solutions to help resolve security issues, staffing and infrastructure challenge for their clients.

AVG CloudCare offers a modern approach to security with streamlined access to advanced features through one centralized pane of glass. Ease of deployment, through one click installation and activation, helps our partners become more agile. The product can be used for managing services, proactive monitoring, content filtering, cloud backup, daily reporting, providing secure sign-on and more, essentially helping our partners act as outsourced IT departments for their clients.

AVG Managed Workplace also offers powerful automation to help partners proactively manage and monitor clients’ networks.  Deployment and update of security tools are easily handled by automation helping to ensure a strong security posture at all times. With premium remote control integrated at no additional cost to the remote monitoring and management platform, partners gain cost savings as well as reporting tools to streamline billing and prove client ROI.

These flexible and powerful AVG solutions empower businesses to address security issues and run more effectively and efficiently. That’s powerful reassurance to give your clients.

AVG

AVG Managed Workplace wins CRN Tech Innovator Award

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Since joining AVG Business, the team and I have been focused around the clock on the products, services, and sales & marketing strategies that will drive success for our partners in 2016. While we still have work to do as we head into next year, I’m taking a few minutes today to congratulate our team and partner community on a recent product award from CRN.

Just two months out in the market and AVG Managed Workplace 9.2, our remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform with premium remote control, is the winner of the CRN Tech Innovator Award for Managed Services.

The platform is our best remote monitoring and management (RMM) solution to date. With premium remote control integrated directly at no extra cost, we have made it easier than ever for our partners to provide remote IT management services to their business customers. Our development process, as always, was heavily influenced by the input of our partners from across the globe.

Winning product recognition like this is a true testament of our partners’ support and their feedback helps us keep innovating and responding to the market needs.

Don’t just take it from me. We have many partners that are already using AVG Managed Workplace 9.2 to protect, secure and manage their clients’ networks and systems, and have great things to say.

Here is a quick look at the feedback:

“The new remote control feature is fabulous and we use it continuously. Almost instantly at the time we get a help desk call, we are remoting back into that desktop. We have a 12 minute SLA for an initial communication. To be able to get back in and have the engineer fixing the problem that quickly is amazing. Exceptional, responsive customer service is a top priority for Mirazon. AVG Managed Workplace is the product that allows us to do that. It gives us the critical information and details we need to resolve problems quickly and keep our customers very happy.”
– Karen Albers, Partner, Mirazon

 

”Without a doubt, AVG Managed Workplace’s reporting features are what enable us to close more business deals with healthcare providers. The Inventory Control, Content Filtering, and Network Health reports in particular are invaluable and what our clients want to see day-in and day-out. Plus, the remote control features allow our Support Engineers to proactively work on machines in the background and fix issues while physicians are still treating patients.”
– Shawn Miller, President and CEO, ConXit Healthcare Technology Group Inc

 

“We recently previewed AVG Managed Workplace 9.2 and immediately noticed the advantages of the remote control features, the faster speed and the added tools. We are looking forward to making this available to our IT support teams as soon as possible to deliver excellent customer support.”
– Luis Flores, Help Desk Analyst, Tecnet Canada

 

“We’re very pleased with the new release of AVG Managed Workplace and specifically with the improvements with Patch Management and Maintenance releases. Now we’re able to automate more tasks, more easily and provide proactive services to end customers.”
— Elias Grim, Director of Support, Alura Business Solutions

 

As businesses continue to struggle with security and protection, we will continually strive to provide superior products and services that help our customers successfully and securely compete in today’s rapidly changing environment. This latest award from CRN is further recognition that our strategy is paying off. Thank you for your support!