Building a Modern, Cloud-Enabled Workforce with Microsoft 365
Member Business Financial Service (MBFS) is a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO) that helps credit unions fund business loans in the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States. MBFS has focused on becoming the preferred business lending partner for credit unions in its markets, and credit unions with loans funded and under management by MBFS have seen strong growth over the last five years.
Challenge
Mark Ritter, CEO of MBFS, had found that limiting his hiring to only local candidates stunting his ability to grow his organization. Ritter and MBFS envisioned having employees working from anywhere across the country, powered by a strong IT partner and cloud-enabled resources. Execution of this vision was being held back by the IT environment and resources that they had (which were provided by a larger member credit union), and MBFS felt that their needs were not being prioritized by the larger credit union’s IT administrators. Additionally, MBFS’s disaster recovery solution could not pass a recovery test. Between faulty security and hurdles to expanding his employees’ remote capabilities and growing his staff, Ritter was looking for new solutions.
Solutions
After a discovery process, Hammer Tech was able to deliver to Mark and MBFS a suite of solutions designed to address their concerns. Hammer Tech offered implementation and coordination on transitioning over to a new provider and used Citrix to help too. Mark continued to enlist the assistance of Weidenhammer on other ventures.
MBFS’s data center has been transitioned a secure and managed Microsoft Azure cloud environment, and the organization is working with Hammer Tech to migrate the entire organization to Microsoft 365 and the Microsoft security platform.
MBFS also instituted a managed cybersecurity awareness program to turn a potential weakness (user error or exploitation) into a strong line of cybersecurity defense. Endpoint procurement and lifecycle management are now managed in the fashion that best fits MBFS’s needs.
In addition, MBFS worked with the Weidenhammer Hammer Dev team to develop a secure, custom loan portal; deployed advanced business intelligence analytics and reporting through Power BI; and leveraged robotic process automation (RPA) via Power Automate.
Results
As a result of this initiative, MBFS was able to empower its workforce to work remotely and securely, allowing MBFS to access top talent from across the country. In the six years that MBFS has partnered with Hammer Tech, MBFS has grown from around 15 employees to nearly 50, helping Mark Ritter fulfill his organizational growth goals.
In addition, MBFS takes comfort in a significantly improved security posture while experiencing fewer IT-related emergencies, better throughput on the network and systems, and confidence that any issues will be quickly resolved. MBFS also has access Hammer Tech’s broad, deep, and experienced pool of IT personnel and support resources, resulting in a better user experience and improved workforce productivity. Hammer Tech and MBFS’s senior leadership continue to meet regularly and work together to support MBFS’s business needs. MBFS has become a leader in leveraging technology to grow its business by creating a better customer experience, thereby retaining clients, and attracting new customers.
