Cyber security remains an overwhelming challenge for many Australian small businesses. That’s an opportunity for IT providers that simplify security for them.
Sydney-based Fuse Technology has done that and is reaping the rewards, with industry recognition and impressive growth in cloud and managed services revenues.
The company handles security technology through to end user training and enablement, aiming to deliver security outcomes based on Essential Eight level two compliance at minimum.
“We basically do a security guarantee. We put our name on the line and we offer rebates if they get breached,” said Fuse Technology managing director Chuong Mai-Viet.
The company was recognised globally at the 2023 Ingram Global Cloud and Innovation Summit in the US, where it was awarded Solution Partner of the Year. It was the second win for the Australian firm, which was also named Ingram Micro 2022 Reseller Partner of the Year in Miami.
At the 2023 Ingram Experience roadshow, CRN Australia asked Mai-Viet what should be top of mind for SMB owners.
Small business confusion
In my Mai-Viet’s experience, small businesses were very confused about what's important when it comes to security.
“When they hear things in the press about cyber breaches, they just think automatically someone's hacking into their systems and stealing their money,” he said.
“What they're not seeing is security can be as basic as someone breaching your email and sending emails on your behalf, and they don't kind of understand why that impacts them until they see it in real life.”
Small business owners need to see real life examples in their industries, Mai-Viet pointed out.
“And that's I think the challenge in the industry at the moment, is there's a lot of great security vendors out there, but they're not simplifying it down to a business owner [such as the] head of a law firm [with] 40 staff. His email get gets breached. How does that affect his business?”
A gap in the market
As one of Australia's first MSPs to go all-in on Microsoft cloud, Fuse Technology has been on an evolving journey with the technology. Identifying the emerging platform's gaps and shortfalls in the early years helped it to create a thriving business.
“Because we had no legacy business when we started – luckily, we had a great partner in Ingram. We were one of Ingram's first cloud service provider partners,” Mai-Viet said.
Fuse Technology developed Fuse365, a managed security product for small to medium businesses that wraps managed services and end user support with security in a “simple, easy to understand package.”
“We saw a kind of hole in the market. There's a lot of great Microsoft tools that aren't used properly,” Mai-Viet said.
“People were using MFA, which was great, but there was this whole slew of other tools and products that you could use to really secure your environment.”
With the help of Ingram, who helped train Fuse Technology and line it up with the right people within Microsoft, Fuse Technology decided that using its solution it could deal with most of what needed to be done with Microsoft.
“It was that partnership that kind of got us over the line with that product,” Mai-Viet said
Joining forces
There were many cloud aggregators with which Fuse could have partnered. Mai-Viet was won over by Ingram Micro’s global reach, scale and value-added services.
“The reason why we chose Ingram is mainly because Ingram are a global player,” he said. “I've been to the Ingram Micro Cloud Conference for a few years now in the US and the level of conversation, the partners – things that are happening over there are much more mature.”
Fuse Technology has also taken part in SMB workshops with Microsoft and Ingram Micro – lunch sessions funded by Microsoft for Fuse Technology clients who weren’t on a security journey.
“It's just a great way of getting small business owners together in a room to talk about their business challenges without anyone selling technology to them, and we've had great success,” Mai-Viet said.
“We've kind of converted three or four clients from Business Standard to the Business Premium products and our security product. I think it just helps build the ecosystem for us as a trusted advisor.”
Ingram Micro has also connected Fuse Technology with Microsoft in other ways.
“We're too small to have a direct relationship with Microsoft. We need someone like Ingram to help us on that journey,” Mai-Viet said.
“Microsoft have come to the party because the people at Ingram have introduced us to the right people and have shown the value of Fuse to Microsoft.”
“Microsoft have a lot of partners and you know, everyone wants help, but if you can partner with someone like Ingram and show them the journey and work together, you get a better outcome.”
Mai-Viet attributes the company’s success to its partnerships.
“The growth came about because we basically went all in with Ingram and Microsoft,” he said.
“Using the cloud marketplace, we could automate all of our billing into our core system. And what that meant was we could literally churn or bring on new clients overnight without extra billing processes, extra people on the back end.”
“I've had the same amount of admin staff for the last four years. But in that time, we've grown our cloud revenue nearly 500 percent, and it was all off the back of the technology stack that Ingram had, tied in with our billing platforms.”
“Also, it was just an easy process. We could just literally log on and say we want to move these 50 seats from Business Standard from this reseller to Business Premium with us directly. We upsold them, we had the growth, and it was literally just a click of a button,” he said.
This happened during Covid when not a lot of customers were changing suppliers, Mai-Viet said: “We managed to do it because of the tools and systems that Ingram helped us with.”
When Fuse Technology officially launched a product in 2022, it did so in conjunction with Microsoft and Ingram Micro.
“We did it based on a stack of tools that were provided to us by Ingram and Microsoft, and we launched it with Brad Clarke, who's head of channels for Microsoft. He came to our event as a keynote speaker and we kind of went all in and the security product for us was all about simplifying an outcome for our customers,” Mai-Viet said.
Fuse Technology’s seat count has grown exponentially.
“Our managed services business in the last year has grown 50 percent, our cloud revenues have grown 50 percent. And we have no extra salespeople, no extra marketing. It's just been off the back of a great product.”
“With the help of Ingram, we were able to do that kind of flex up without kind of the huge amount of investment needed.”
“There's a lot of all care, no responsibility“
Mai-Viet offers advice about bringing to life security risks for customers.
“As a director of the business, you are responsible, not your IT manager. You are the director of the business and what's going to happen if you have a security breach, if you're not compliant? You'll fire your IT manager, but that's not going to help you as a director get out of trouble, right?”
“You can no longer shift responsibility to someone else. If you do shift responsibility to someone else, pick someone who's a partner, who's in it with you for the long haul, and not someone who you know if they get it wrong – sorry, but by that time, your business, your reputation, your money is gone.”
“This is the bit in the industry that I think people haven't quite wrapped their heads around yet. There's a lot of all care, no responsibility. I think at some stage you’ve got to have some skin in the game.”
Looking farther afield
Fuse welcomes a hardening of the Government's stance towards repeated cyber incursions.
“I think the next challenge for most partners in this space is more around the compliance and the reporting. I think it's inevitable within the Australian market that government will mandate a minimum security level. I hope so, because I just feel that if we don't force people to do something about it, we'll be in a worse spot than we are today.
“What we're building now and what we're using Microsoft technology and hopefully a bit of help from Ingram, is a portal that allows our clients to see where their compliance is from an Australian perspective.”
He sees a prosperous future for Fuse Technology, which includes returning to its source while spreading its wings nationally and internationally.
“We've launched operations in the UK. We're about to spin up a service centre in Vietnam. Nothing front facing with our clients, more backend security monitoring, those sorts of things. We've just launched a Perth sales office. So there's strong expansion plans across the board.”
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