Empowering Business Continuity!
In today’s digital landscape, proven emerging technology and robust cybersecurity solutions are needed to ensure business continuity. Implementing these strategies protects business assets and positions themselves for growth in today’s competitive landscape. Thus, regularly assessing and updating these solutions is crucial to staying ahead of evolving technology trends.
Given the variety of technology sectors, Edafio always strives to understand the clients’ IT priorities for the business. Clients are at the center of Edafio’s structure, systems, culture, and future planning. Thus, to address more of their strength, we conducted an interview with the team at Edafio to learn more about its capabilities.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Can you provide a brief overview of your company and its primary focus areas within the tech industry?
Edafio is among the largest and most rapidly growing IT-managed services providers (MSP) in the Mid-South region, with strong roots in Arkansas. Clientele includes a wide range of industry sectors — healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, transportation, government, education, and other non-profit institutions and organizations. Edafio’s mission is to help clients protect, run, and grow their businesses, and we attribute our success to living our mission and core values.
The origin of the firm traces back to 1999, when the founders responded to the IT needs of JPMS, a Little Rock-based accounting firm and its clients. In the ensuing two decades, Edafio grew to become Arkansas’s largest full-service technology provider, recognized as one of the top MSPs in the nation. Awards and accolades include Business of the Year, Best Places to Work, Best Places to Work in IT, and Most Admired IT Company in Arkansas, among others.
The current organization comprises 130 associates, certified engineers, and specialists, with plans to expand to over 200 associates in 2023. Over 90% of the team is dedicated to ensuring the security of client company networks through a range of managed cybersecurity, network management, and consulting services. Edafio holds UCS/SOC 2 Type 2 Certification, ensuring clients’ access to the highest level of technology competence, professionalism, and peace of mind.
How does your company stay updated with the latest technological trends and advancements?
Remaining at the forefront of technology is a strategic imperative at Edafio, as both the rate of change in the commercial environment and rapidly evolving technologies demand it.
A culture of continuous learning: The cornerstone of our approach is training and knowledge-sharing and ensuring that the entire team is continuously well-informed and up-to-date. Commitment to Microsoft Teams channels has helped disseminate and leverage industry-focused IT news and the latest tech innovations and cyber updates across the entire organization.
Rigorous standards and both formal and informal training facilitate continuous monitoring of the latest developments and evaluation of the quality of services we deliver to clients. Acknowledging and learning from mistakes is also valuable to a culture of continuous learning.
Preferred partner calls: Regular and systematic contact with preferred partners, such as HPE, Aruba, Microsoft, Veeam, and Ingram Micro. These calls help us stay aligned with their offerings and are also a source of industry insights.
Peer Learning: Engaging with peer groups — at various levels and functions in the organization — also helps associates expand their knowledge and stay at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines. Edafio staff attend and often facilitate webinars and roundtable discussions to share insider best practices.
Could you highlight some of the significant achievements or milestones your company has reached in 2023?
2023 has seen important milestones for Edafio as the firm pursues geographical expansion, initially by putting offices and staff into other regions within Arkansas and now by preparing to further reach into surrounding states.
With respect to capabilities and client service, NOC was expanded to 24/7. Scalable remote management tools have been deployed, and engineers re-trained as part of the Microsoft “Modern Work” specialization. Edafio’s managed services division is now ready to assist clients irrespective of time and place. Professional services have evolved project management skills and services and further differentiated Edafio. The Project Management Office (PMO) not only has strengthened executional excellence on contracted client projects but also has become a service in itself, offering clients project management services for their own internal projects as well.
2023 also saw the successful rolling out of a comprehensive service catalog, specifying pricing service levels and laying out a process for expanding scope and adding services. The goal is to work against a clear framework and transparent guide for clients, helping link Edafio services that precisely fit client needs and expectations …and ensuring consistent, efficient service delivery.
How does your company approach research and development to stay at the cutting edge of technology?
Edafio’s approach to research and development begins with an investment in our people with the relevant experience, skills, and certifications. The functional teams play the primary role in developing, exploring, and evaluating emerging and new technologies. Piloting new solutions, first, before rolling them out on a wider scale ensures that new technologies effectively and efficiently address the unique needs of our clients; the emphasis is always on practical experience in real-world scenarios.
Edafio has established strong partnerships with technology innovators — e.g., Veeam, BackBox, Aruba, HPE, and Microsoft 365 —which also helps to provide early access to new tech while surfacing opportunities for joint ventures and other collaborative models to share the cost of R&D.
The input and feedback clients provide their dedicated Edafio client relationship managers and technical account managers also help shape R&D efforts and priorities. Finally, we believe that research and development includes certain human qualities: curiosity, adaptability, responsiveness, and a real passion for the ever-changing tech landscape lead the way and drive client success and, in turn, Edafio’s success.
Which emerging technologies do you believe will play a crucial role in shaping the tech industry in the coming years?
It is increasingly clear that the future of work must embrace the ability to work anywhere, which has profound implications for the technologies that support this trend —cloud computing and SaaS technologies are among the most obvious vehicles and beneficiaries. Cloud services and cloud hosting play increasingly important roles in our service offerings. Azure hosting, office 365, and SaaS products allow businesses previously locked into on-premise servers or hosted services to move to fully cloud-based deployments… or, at least, a hybrid of on-premise resources and cloud offerings.
Of course, the explosive growth of AI also promises to ease the communication burden of working remotely and allow workers to concentrate more on value-added work, and Zero Trust Architecture will be one of the biggest and best ways to secure our clients.
In what ways is your company incorporating sustainability and ethical practices into its tech innovations for 2023?
Edafio prioritizes sustainable technology innovations in a variety of tangible and specific ways, and we live by our core values, which embrace both commitment to our client’s success and unquestionable integrity.
Cloud solutions reduce dependence on on-premises hardware, minimizing energy consumption, reducing hardware waste, and encouraging efficient resource allocation. Sustainability initiatives employ other measures to curtail environmental impact, such as monitoring power usage efficiency (PUE) and carbon footprint across data centers, which has yielded an impressive 13% improvement in PUE vs. recent years. To further enhance energy efficiency, other critical changes include:
- Optimizing operational controls for cooling systems.
- Replacing or retrofitting inefficient and electrical systems.
- Incorporating highly efficient electrical and mechanical equipment for all new construction and expansions.
Sustainability values are deeply embedded in our physical infrastructure. Edafio’s headquarters was intentionally designed with sustainability as a core consideration, and this long-term commitment is a source of great pride. In addition to infrastructure, Edafio actively promotes sustainability through other initiatives, such as implementing remote work and digital solutions.
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