Quotient Ventures turns to Microsoft 365 Business Premium for productivity, collaboration, device management, and data security in a single solution 

Established in August 2018, Tilt Brand Solutions, part of Quotient Ventures, provides creative, digital, and production services to brand owners and business leaders. Based in Mumbai, the organization has grown very quickly to represent clients ranging from ambitious startups to several brands that are household names around the world. 

Like many fast-moving companies, there was no standardized IT practice in its early years. In fact, the agency’s IT staff today comprises just two people. For a business driven by creative professionals, the approach is not atypical, nor are the results. The IT environment was very mixed in terms of hardware, operating systems, and software — a patchwork of Macs and Windows machines, various versions of desktop productivity software, and users’ personal cloud-storage accounts. The rise in hybrid and remote work only exacerbated the problem.

“There was no governance when I got here,” says Mehboob Kasim, who joined the organization in 2022 to professionalize its operations and systems. “They were bootstrapping at the time, and it was creating a lot of friction in the users’ workflow. For example, presentation designs and layouts would break as they were saved across platforms, sometimes as client deadlines were looming. Even two people using Office, for example, would have problems if one had a newer version and had to remember to save documents as earlier versions in order to collaborate.”

In addition to its impact on users, the patchwork of systems and versions put a strain on the fledgling IT function. “We had to do everything manually,” Kasim recalls, “from configuring each new device to updating productivity software using thumb drives. It took a lot of time and uniformity was difficult to achieve because nothing was automated. In addition, I saw a need to improve our security posture.”

Kasim engaged Matrix3D, a local Microsoft partner, to help institute a more standardized approach. “Our whole idea was to give them a seamless transition to a single platform,” says Nazmeen Ansari, who heads the technology practice at Matrix3D. “The next objective was to ensure that Mehboob’s team could control all of Quotient Ventures’ devices and ensure data security across the entire environment from a single admin panel.”

“Quotient Ventures went with Microsoft Business Premium because we also wanted to bring in device management and endpoint protection and security,” Kasim adds.

With Matrix3D’s expert help, Kasim implemented Microsoft 365 Business Premium, which provided users with Microsoft 365 (for both Mac and Windows users) and IT with Microsoft Intune for device management. Apple’s device-management system was integrated with Intune to give Tilt a single point of control. “Whether the data is on a laptop or a mobile device, or wherever it is, they can safeguard it,” says Ansari.

The entire migration took only two weeks with minimal impact to users, which number more than 100. Users were well informed about the migration process, the benefits of the new system, and the expected outcomes. The migration was deployed in phases to avoid overwhelming people, and the data transfer process was tested prior to the migration and verified afterward. “We spent a lot of time on planning, from user communications to data migration to how we would recover in the event of a failure,” Ansari explains. “Those efforts were essential to the success of the project.”

“The critical thing in all of this is to make sure we didn’t lose any data, and ensuring that communications were not interrupted,” Kasim adds. “Creative people have their own ways of doing things and they value their freedom when it comes to working, so we didn’t want to implement any policies on their machines that would hamper their work.”

Post-migration, Kasim cites cost savings among the benefits that the company is enjoying. “For example, we were paying for Google Workspace, but we were not getting the most out of it,” he says, “so those were like hidden costs that we were able to eliminate. And even for Office, we had different licenses and versions, so when a new version came out it was very costly to move the entire agency over.” Kasim estimates the cost savings of licensing Microsoft 365 Business Premium to be around 40 percent.

As important as the cost savings, Kasim emphasizes the additional value of Business Premium as a key benefit. “We were able to implement Microsoft Intune and security features that we didn’t have before,” he says, “and I can support the business more effectively with a very small team. We’re doing a lot more without needing a lot more people. So even if the costs were the same as before, I would be happy.”

With Microsoft Intune, Kasim can easily keep up with the company’s rapid growth. “When it comes to provisioning devices for new users, we're able to hand a device over to a user on their first day, fully configured and compliant with our policies,” he says. “Intune makes it much easier. And if any employee is facing a problem, we are able to troubleshoot for them a lot faster because the setup is homogeneous. There’s no guesswork. There’s no process of discovery because we know exactly what it should be.”

Users are experiencing less friction in their workflows. “Now that they are using Teams to collaborate,” says Kasim, “it’s just a lot easier for them to find documents,” which is critical in a fast-growing agency where new users are being added frequently. “Requests for help finding files have drastically reduced,” he says.

As for the company’s security posture, Kasim says it has improved at both the device and data levels. “We were able to customize Business Premium to ensure that what people are sharing — and with whom — is at least controlled or managed,” he acknowledges.

“On the back end, we have ensured that the tenant is completely secure,” adds Ansari, “whether we’re talking about email security, safe attachments, protection from phishing and malware attacks… all those protections will be in the alerts and reports that we created. So that in case of any problem, the IT team gets an alert and they can act on it.”

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