This episode features a discussion about FastTrack between Robert Buktenica and Hambik Matvosian. Hambik explains that FastTrack is a paid service that helps clients with their M365 digital transformation journey. He also discusses the requirements for qualifying and how businesses with more than 150 paid licenses can use the program. They go on to describe further advantages of working with FastTrack, such as having access to an expert and significant time savings on project schedules.
TIMESTAMP
00:07 – Introduction
00:36 – The Brew
01:37 – What is FastTrack?
02:55 – What companies are eligible to take advantage of this?
04:13 – What are the benefits of FastTrack?
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Robert Buktenica: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Late Night Brew, where we talk to brew first and then we get around to the business that’s on point. I’m Robert Buktenica, also known as Buck, and tonight on the show with me is Hambik Matvosian. Welcome back, Sir.
Hambik Matvosian: Thank you, mate, always a pleasure to be on your show. Looking forward to it.
Robert: All right. Tonight, we’re going to talk again about FastTrack and the new exciting, much shorter and succinct video.
The Brew
Robert: First things first though, what brew are you having with me?
Hambik: Well, considering it’s almost nine o’clock in the morning here in Sydney, I’ve got my trusted liquid gold. This is going to keep me going for the day. Well, I’ll probably need more, but for now, it’s a good start. What about you?
Robert: It’s a brew, I’ll let it pass. Although breakfast beers exist for a reason, I’m just going to throw that out. Everyone knows —
Hambik: Actually, it’s beer o’clock somewhere in the world, right, so, yeah, I should go crack open a cold one right now.
Robert: Exactly. I have a Hazy IPA from Brooklyn. It’s called Brooklyn Pulp Art. It’s actually pretty good.
Hambik: I need to make a trip out your way. I need to see all these beers that you’ve got, this is incredible.
Robert: American beer stores man. We’ve got a little bit of everything. You’re always welcome. That’s our video. So, there you go.
What is FastTrack?
Robert: Now, let’s start with the easiest yet most difficult question, what is FastTrack?
Hambik: Yes, so FastTrack is a funded service. It’s funded by Microsoft, delivered by partners like us at Insentra, and basically, it’s a remote guidance/ adoption service, where consultants will guide the customer through their M365 digital transformation journey.
Now that could be anywhere from technical workshops. We can look at running through business enablement workshops, depending on if the customer’s going from a third-party product, they wanted to go to an M365 equivalent.
We can start discussing some of the challenges that they may be facing as and sort of work out how best we can help them through that, through those challenges. Ideally, the way I like to position it with customers is think of FastTrack as Microsoft’s “phone a friend” service for M365, or basically, from a guidance perspective, as other crew members have put it, is we will guide you through what buttons to push, but then it’s the customer’s responsibility to then push those buttons that we told them push.
We’ll give them all that guidance, and they’ll need to do it themselves or bring in a partner, because as a FastTrack partner, we don’t have remote access into environments. We don’t do any of that technical enablement where a traditional consulting engagement would do.
What companies are eligible to take advantage of this?
Robert: Awesome. Now, what companies are eligible to take advantage of this?
Hambik: There are specific documented licenses that qualify for FastTrack, so things like if you’re an NFP, unfortunately, if you’ve got NFP licensing, let’s just say, unfortunately this isn’t covered under FastTrack, but everything else generally is, and if customers have, from any industry really, it’s not sort of industry-specific at all. If you’ve got over 150 paid licenses in your tenancy, then you automatically qualify for FastTrack. Once you have those licenses, it’s been a matter of just raising that request to say, look, I need FastTrack assistance for workloads one, two and three. That will then get assigned to the FastTrack partner, and then that engagement will then start with that customer.
Anyone over 150 seats and above qualifies, and probably that prompts a discussion for another episode of The Late Night Brew, but then you want over 500 seats, gives you that data migration service as well.
Robert: Well, that’s the other advantage of this short snap, is we get to say, “On the next episode,” to live out our dreams.
What are the benefits of FastTrack?
Robert: Now, what would you say– let’s go hot list lightning round. What are the benefits for a company to engage? I know you listed out some in the first question.
Hambik: What this benefit is, that guidance is one. Being a customer now, having someone to speak to and having an expert to speak to, because what we say a lot in the past is customers will try and do this themselves. They’ll, yes, there’s resources available online that customers can go read, but it takes time, right?
So, unless you’ve got time and effort to have your IT guy sit there, reading through docs, articles, blogs, blogs, content, et cetera to try and work out the best way to enable a service. All of that takes time and impact project schedules, et cetera.
Whereas, if you come through and utilise the FastTrack services that you’re automatically entitled to, those experts will then have that experience, guide you through the ins and outs of what you need to do, where you need to start, what you need to look out for, potential gotchas depending on workloads and experiences, to then guide you through that overall end to end deployment journey. It can then significantly save on progress scheduled times.
A deployment, that might take a customer trying to do this themselves six months. Using FastTrack can basically halve that time, as an example, right? So, change online, Intune, you know whatever the workload may be. The real benefit I see is having someone to speak to, right? Because during that engagement, we set up recurring calls with the customer to keep that engagement alive and going.
Given the customer peace of mind, that they’ve got someone on the other end that they can reach out to, whether it be phone call, teams, message, e-mail if and when they’ve got a question. So, they’re not waiting to log a support ticket, they’re not waiting for someone to give them a call back after X number of hours, they’ve got someone there.
If it’s something we’ve seen in the past, could be a very quick and easy sort of fix to help them overcome that challenge they’re facing. But yes, we still do get the scenarios where the customer still needs to go and log a support ticket because there’s more in-depth troubleshooting requirements.
But having someone at that initial point of contact is one of the biggest key benefits of of utilising FastTrack and having that expert on the other end of the line to guide them through.
Robert: Definitely. Unfortunately, that wraps up our time. I’ll need to brief Hambik about what the lightning round actually means. However, I hope everyone enjoyed a delicious drink. You learn something, got any feedback, we’d always love to hear.
Until next episode where we get to dive even deeper into the FastTrack world. Until then, have a great rest of your day. Cheers. Take care, buddy.
Hambik: Thanks, bro. Thanks, Bob. Cheers.
If you want to learn more about how FastTrack can help your company, contact us at Insentra today!
Next Episode: Late Night Brew – FastTrack – The Scope
