Tammy Ven Dange of Roundbox Consulting chats with Andrew Mackenzie, Modern Workplace and Cloud Infrastructure Lead at Professional Advantage about their work with Not for Profits and modern work, infrastructure, security, data, AI, and power platform services within the Microsoft platform.
In this interview, we learn about:
- 00:17 About Professional Advantage
- 01:27 Is Professional Advantage a Microsoft Partner
- 01:58 Professional Advantage services
- 05:03 More About Andrew
- 04:40 Automations for Non-for-Profit clients?
- 07:14 Professional Advantage Customers
- 09:23 Integrations with Microsoft and AI Products
- 11:46 Future works of Professional Advantage
- 14:05 Contact Professional Advantage
Links and Resources:
- More info about Professional Advantage
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Tammy regularly helps Not for Profits make IT investment decisions. Let her know if you need some help.
Tammy Ven Dange is a former charity CEO, Association President, Not for Profit Board Member and IT Executive. Today she helps NFPs with strategic IT decisions as an independent consultant. She does not take commissions nor sign partnership arrangements with vendors.
Video Transcript (Minor modifications have been made for clarity)
Tammy Ven Dange
Today I welcome Andrew Mackenzie, Modern Workplace and Cloud Infrastructure Lead at Professional Advantage.
Welcome, Andrew. I know I’ve already spoken with Dennis De La Costa about Professional Advantage before, but we were really speaking about the Upbeat product that you have.
And I wanted to bring you on to this video because of the fact that you guys offer a lot more services than that.
So Andrew, please tell us more about Professional Advantage.
About Professional Advantage
Andrew Mackenzie
Professional Advantage is an IT consulting implementation and support company with 300 people focusing on, I guess, helping organisations achieve more with technology. And we’ve been doing this for over 30 years now, quite well known in the community. It always surprises me new people I meet and they already know about us.
And I think that’s largely because our clients build long-term relationships with us. Typically, they work with us for well over 10 years and that seems to impact our staff journey as well, who also work with Professional Advantage well over 10 years.
So both our staff and our clients really enjoy that long-term relationship.
I’m one of the guys who probably drags that up a little, Tammy. I’ve been here for over 20 years now, but I think it’s a great advertisement for the company.
Tammy Ven Dange
Oh, for sure. It’s unusual in IT companies to see people with such longevity. And I have to say most people I’ve met there have worked there at least 10 years.
So it is very unusual.
Now, just to be clear, you’re a Microsoft partner.
Andrew Mackenzie
Correct. Yep, definitely. Microsoft partner, a really broad set of services, actually.
Tammy Ven Dange
And the services that you look after are what?
Andrew Mackenzie
So, I look after our Microsoft 365 modern work practice, our infrastructure-managed services and the security part of the business at Professional Advantage.
But we also are very skilled, capable, and have strengths in Microsoft Dynamics that you mentioned before, data, AI, power platform, all the things. It’s a very broad skill set at PA.
Tammy Ven Dange
And so just to be clear for our non-technical clients out there, I know Professional Advantage for a couple things:
One is your managed service offering for, which I think you work with quite a few Not for Profits. But also then from that data perspective, in terms of like, moving organisations onto the cloud, and also some aspects of data analytics and reporting.
Is that right?
Andrew Mackenzie
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, really important parts of the business. and I think IT has transformed a lot.
And, certainly that cloud platform is really important and prevalent right throughout most clients these days. And I think that connected picture of being able to understand everything and how it comes together, not just in isolation, but how security maps across your applications, how security maps across your data, not just that traditional access, the traditional sort of plumbing side of things is important.
Tammy Ven Dange
Now, you’ve already said you have been with the company for a while. How did you get involved?
How Andrew became involved in Professional Advantage
Andrew Mackenzie
It’s a good question, Tammy. It was a long time ago. I ran a sales and marketing franchise when I finished university and really learned a lot through that experience.
I had an IT degree behind me. So, I wanted to use the skills that I’d learned in that sales and management experience and combine it with the qualifications I’d invested in.
So, Professional Advantage became aware of my availability, and we began working together in 2001 where I initially joined in that business development role, mainly around infrastructure managed services and security.
I was then lucky enough to begin working in that SharePoint space and grow our team and our practice with SharePoint, which has grown today into what’s really our Microsoft 365 modern work practice.
So, as I say, it’s really extensive range of services in the team that I work with and, it really helps us not just focus on that core traditional part of IT, but really to be able to help organisations work better, automate their workflow, manage their data, all the sorts of things they need to do to achieve their goals.
Professional Advantage Not for Profit work
Tammy Ven Dange
You talk about automation and I know within Not for Profits there’s all sorts of issues around the amount of processes that a lot of them are using now.
Do you have any good examples with Not for Profits you’re working with of how you’ve created some automations for them?
Andrew Mackenzie
Yeah, look, there’s probably plenty. There are some that I can think of with a well-known Not for Profit, that assists disadvantaged children.
When I think back when COVID hit, it was a change for people and what we’re able to do in a process there.
There was data that needed to be captured around the children that people were sponsoring and supporting and that data needed to be assessed and reviewed for security purposes.
Feedback was needed to get back to the sponsors in a timely manner, coordination with content, I guess, with maybe things like school reports or any maybe psychology services, etc.
You had all these different people and connected and a big role in that organisation is what the volunteers do and how they spend their time assessing and reviewing data for sensitivity, making sure there’s nothing in there that goes to people that shouldn’t be.
So, there was a big challenge in that organisation and being able to do that work remotely.
Historically, it was done in office and we were able to help them with a platform that now extended the reach of their volunteers – not just the people that maybe worked in, near the Sydney office location or the Melbourne office location, but volunteers rather in Australia and we’re talking thousands, in that community of volunteers.
We were able to give them access but also allow the business that manages those programs to on-board and off-board access.
So, you might have a volunteer who says, “Hey Tammy, I’m free Thursday at 2pm.” Well, you’ve got to give them access when it’s a remote scenario, right?
It’s not just coming to the office anymore and IT doesn’t really have the capacity to deal with that sort of on-boarding, off-boarding in hourly blocks for thousands of people.
It would just kill IT. So, we’ve built a whole interface where people can request that. It goes through, automates, checks their security, gives them access to certain applications and, that we’re doing their capacity to work with and that’s approved at the business level, without IT having to be involved.
Tammy Ven Dange
Sounds like a huge project.
Do you work with only large Not for Profits or do you work with smaller ones too?
Ideal clients for Professional Advantage
Andrew Mackenzie
No, not at all. I don’t think size matters when we’re talking about clients. I think it’s a vision you can create and the stories that you build from the outcomes that you can achieve that, we all look back on with pride, both the client and the people in our team.
So, we work with very small Not for Profit organisations, maybe 20 to 50 staff, where we’re really helping them, they don’t have the capacity necessarily in IT to deal with all the things they need to.
It could be security monitoring, it could be staff enablement, it could be vision and strategy around what they can do with the platforms they already have access to. It could just be helping them connect to a greater community.
So, it’s not the size. For us, it’s how can we help and make a difference with the client?
Tammy Ven Dange
I think you do have quite a few Not for Profits on your books?
Andrew Mackenzie
I think it’s over 150 Not for Profits. It’s really important part of the community that we work with it. And that extends right through to our DNA a little bit in Professional Advantage. So, one example of that is our volunteer time-out program.
So, every staff member, which is a substantial 300 staff – every staff member has access to three additional days of paid leave, which they can put towards their volunteering with organisations that they believe in the cause or they want to support. And that’s quite often with our clients helping their missions. So, it’s a win-win for all.
Applying AI in Not for Profits
Tammy Ven Dange
Great. Now, I can’t help but ask a Microsoft partner about the application of AI because I get asked this question all the time. And I imagine whatever you tell me is probably going to be out of date within a month.
So, beware of what you say. But it’d be interesting to see how you’re introducing, I guess, Microsoft and AI’s functionality within Not for Profits today.
Andrew Mackenzie
Yeah, I think it’s a tricky one. And most people would probably jump down my throat when you hear my response. Microsoft Copilot is everywhere. They’re talking about it and organisations are coming to us saying, “Oh, we need to deploy Microsoft Copilot” as one example of AI.
And often my response to them is forget Copilot. It’s done a little in jest, but I think you’ve got a scenario here where you’ve got a new tool. There are some things that it can do really well, but there are also some things that it doesn’t quite do that well yet. And it will get there; Microsoft is good at that.
But I think it introduces a lot of risk to organisations because there’s going to be this expectation and we see it already, some staff get access to it and, “Oh, why can’t it do this? How come it can’t do that?” and all these questions then get bombarded onto IT to try and solve.
And I think it’s what people need to understand, it’s no different to any application. if you just go and give, for example, Microsoft SharePoint to the staff and say, here it is, good luck. It’s going to be a fail, right?
AI is no different. So I would just caution people. Where we see that success is we come at it from an approach of what is a business problem? And then we understand how AI can maybe help that because it extends way beyond Copilot.
There’s development that can be done. There’s Azure tools, open AI tools that come in and connect and, where we can have a use case that solves a specific business problem in an application interface that does what people need it to do. Then we’ve got a good, successful AI deployment.
Tammy Ven Dange
Our view is very much aligned, Andrew, very much aligned. And there’s obviously significant pressure on those of us who work in this industry to try to introduce AI strategies and such. But I agree with you that it is truly a tool and not an outcome by itself.
So thank you for being honest. And I’m really happy to hear that we’re, have similar views on this. I know that you guys are constantly developing products and looking at additional applications that may be a part or beneficial within the Microsoft suite.
Is there anything you want to share on your roadmap and things you’re working on?
Andrew Mackenzie
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it might even connect into our last conversation slightly. I think in IT, everything comes and goes in waves.
Yeah, there might be a song about that. But it always has done. And I really think many organisations are now in that wave of better managing their data.
Information management, security, compliance, they’re part of every IT conversation these days. And AI that we’ve just touched on has come along. And that’s really only heightened the requirement for good data governance.
If you’ve got a gap there, it’s going to put the biggest magnifying glass over that you’ve ever seen. So at PA, we’re really excited, because we’re right at the forefront of that in Australia. And we’ve been helping clients extend their Microsoft 365 data management, compliance and security with the iWorkplace apps for Microsoft 365.
Now, these are a set of apps and tools that, have really done some great things overseas. And they’ve just become available here in Australia late last year. And I think it’s a massive game changer for information protection and compliance and making it easy.
And that’s not something that it’s always been. So it does that through automating the capture of metadata, automating sensitivity on data, or the labelling of the data, automating the retention and disposal policies. And all users have to do is they just drag a file into a folder, or they just save a file into a folder, we’re not asking them to do anything other than that.
They’re not making decisions, they’re not having to apply tags to content. and there are a number of tools in the market, Microsoft have their own out of the box that can assist with this. But not with the same user experience or cost benefit that iWorkplace does.
So I really think there’s a huge opportunity in the Australian market, particularly around NFPs. I’m sure you’d agree that, many of them are dealing with sensitive data, probably most of them, Tammy. So, if you know any clients looking for help in that area, we can make a significant difference for them.
Tammy Ven Dange
Great. And if people want to know more about Professional Advantage and how to reach you, where should we send them?
Andrew Mackenzie
As always, websites are a great place. So www.pa.com.au or you could always send us an email to info@pa.com.au. And one of the team can be in touch and help understand what you’re trying to do.
Tammy Ven Dange
Right. Andrew, thank you for your time today. And thank you for sharing more about Professional Advantage.
Andrew Mackenzie
That’s wonderful. And, great to connect, Tammy. And thank you.