In this podcast, CEO and Co-Founder of Isos Technology, Thad West, shares the various services partners can provide whether it be consultative or technical.
Roberto Musso: Hi, and welcome to the Atlassian Advantage podcast series. Here is our next episode, Making the Most of Your Lasting Partnership.
Sean O'Sullivan: Hi everyone. I'd like to thank you all for joining us again today for our latest podcast, featuring the Atlassian solution partner program. My name is Sean O'Sullivan, the Sales Director of the Atlassian team at Carahsoft, and I'm joined today by the CEO of Isos Technology, Thad West. Thad, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thad West: Sean, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk to you again.
Sean O'Sullivan: Great. We're happy to have you here. Hey, so Thad, the team at Carahsoft began working with Atlassian solution partners a few years ago, and we often find ourselves explaining to customers the roles that they play with Atlassian and its users. As a platinum solution partner, I think Isos would be a great example to walk our listeners through that role. With that, I'll start first by asking you the basic question: What does it mean to be an Atlassian solution partner?
Thad West: That's a great question. It's a question we get a lot. One of the interesting things about Atlassian that we know and love is they're an interesting company and they do things a little bit differently. One of the things they do differently is they don't have a professional services organization. So to be an Atlassian solutions partner means that you are that professional services arm for Atlassian.
So we help customers do all sorts of things. We partner with Carahsoft to help customers resolve licensing issues. We'll do heavy engineering-type work. We'll do consulting and strategy and long-term, big projects and all sorts of interesting and fun services all related around the Atlassian products, but really touching every product and integration point that the modern day teams have.
Sean O'Sullivan: All right. So clearly, it sounds like Atlassian solution partners are pretty integral to getting users set up properly with their Atlassian deployments. Could you give me some examples, of the type of help that these partners provide?
Thad West: Yeah, sure. Concrete examples always help me too. For sure. One example comes right off the top of my head is we did a project with the Department of Defense, a group within the Department of Defense called the Defense Media Activity. They had 750 plus websites that they front end for the military, and they had a lot of requests coming in from all of that user base. How do they handle and deal with all of those users? They really needed some tools and some process around setting up those tools. We helped them roll out a JIRA service desk, so there was ... I'd say that there wasn't a heavy engineering lift in that, but it was very consultative in helping them understand and best practices and how to roll out that tool.
On the flip side, we'll do stuff that's very technical. Another good example is we did a project for the Air Force. They had a very specific need where they wanted to be able to quickly spin up JIRA and Confluence instances for their user community in AWS gov cloud, and they wanted to use the AWS cloud formation templates to do that. So we helped them create these AWS cloud formation templates, and gave them a process and a methodology for rapidly deploying new instances of JIRA and Confluence.
And then, another example would be just something that's not so project focused. What we find are a lot of organizations, they have a lot of needs, but they don't really wrap them up into the context of a project. it's more of an ongoing need. For example, right now we're actively engaged with the GSA in a year plus long contract, and just being their level one, level two support for all of their JIRA needs. They really needed a partner to come in that could actually help guide them on best practices that could help engage their individual team members and affect change on the organization as well as be responsible for governance and security and all that kind of fun stuff.
Sean O'Sullivan: Right, perfect examples, right. Especially with this ever-shifting workforce and all the changes right now with public sector users, this sounds like a sheer necessity to me, to have a solution partner guide them.
Now, there has recently been this new program introduced by Atlassian called the Atlassian verified government partners. What is the distinction here from these partners and the other solution partners out there?
Thad West: That's a great question. One of the things that we really love is Atlassian's commitment to the public sector space, and this is furthering that example of that commitment. So public sector customers generally require a different type of dedication and expertise compared to traditional commercial customer accounts. They really want to find the best and the people that really understand how the government works to help them solve their problems. Some of those special requirements come around specific security requirements, technical requirements, and really how to work and speak in the procurement cycles of government, which can be a lot more complex and difficult than in the commercial sector.
Sean O'Sullivan: Gotcha. We obviously talked to government users who are at a different stage when it comes to using their Atlassian deployment. Maybe they're just learning about the software. Maybe they're four years in. Maybe they think they're total experts after one or two years. When would you advise is the best time, though, to bring a solution partner in to really evaluate that person's Atlassian deployment?
Thad West: I wish everybody asked this question. I would say early. A good solution partner can help provide direction and create a plan, avoid common pitfalls, and speed time to adoption. So even if you plan on doing the work in house by yourself, talk to a solution partner. They can help create an initial roadmap for you. They can be that extra set of ears when you run into stumbling blocks so that it will really shorten the time to adoption and really getting the tools in place to make your organization a lot more effective.
Sean O'Sullivan: All right, then, Thad. Let's say the customer has installed their software themselves. Atlassian's deep features, start to maybe overwhelm them. What happens if they realize a few months in that they need some help? Is that an option for a solution partner to get involved?
Thad West: Absolutely. It's funny, that's how most customers find us anyhow. Atlassian does a great job of, "Hey, this is easy to set up and get going right out of the box." What organizations quickly realize within the first two to six months is, "Hey, there's a lot I can do with these tools. There's a lot of power here. You know what? Let's take a step back and let's bring in a partner."
Often there can be some rework at that point when you bring in a partner at that stage, but it's generally never too late to get you going in the right direction. A lot of times, after you've had that experience, you're more familiar with the capabilities of the tools and know what you want it to do. You just maybe don't know how to do it or the quickest way to get it there, or even the best way to get it there.
Sean O'Sullivan: Sure. I would bet with the solution partners, with the years of experience they have, it would be pretty easy to always point out to some of these public sector customers a new feature or a way they could be a better using some of these different features with the Atlassian tool suite. Thanks, Thad.
Where do you suggest our listeners go to learn more about these Atlassian solution partners?
Thad West: Yeah, sure. I'd started at Atlassian themselves first. Their URL for partners is really easy, atlassian.com/partners. That will help you navigate the hundreds of partners that are out there and find a partner that really fits what you're looking for, whether it be by product or by location or by government specialty, for that matter.
Then also it, Atlassian does a great job with the Atlassian community events. They're called ACE, A-C-E, Atlassian community events. And there are, I know in the DC area, there's at least three that happen regularly, and they happen all across the country as well, all across the world, as a matter of fact, and those are really easy to get to as well. It's ACE.Atlassian.com.
Then finally on our own website, we have a white paper that we've published out there called The Most Value From Your Atlassian Investment, and it really goes into a lot of what we talked about today and diving into how you should think about and work with partners and what you should be asking your solution partners as you go through the vetting process and try to figure out who's a good partner to work with.
Sean O'Sullivan: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that last one up. I wanted to say we have to make sure we give Isos the shout out here, obviously, as a platinum solution partner, we know that you guys know what you're doing with the Atlassian space. You've got the experience when it comes to the public sector. Huge, huge, huge resource and help on the Carahsoft side as we've been developing the Atlassian practice over the years.
Thad, I really do appreciate your insight and time today. Super helpful way for customers here to learn about solution partners like yourselves. For our listeners, please check out Thad's suggestions and the resources that are available on our Atlassian Advantage website. Feel free to contact us anytime via email at Atlassian@Carahsoft.com or drop us a line, (833) 547-2468. Thanks again, Thad, for your time. And thank everybody else. We'll see you next time.