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In this episode, I sit down with Tim Allen, Executive Vice President and Founding Partner of Evolve IP. Tim and I have been friends for nearly 25 years through a couple of companies, and in the interest of full disclosure, more than a decade together at Evolve IP.
Tim also joined me here in the studio, which was a nice change of pace from the online interviews that make up a majority of my podcast and likely make up a majority of the meetings that you engage in on a day-to-day basis.
Evolve IP’s Use-Case-Focused Approach
We talked a lot about the theme of evolution and how it’s a principle tenet of Evolve IP’s go-to-market and what he called evolutionaries or their ideal customer. These are people who don’t want to incur technical debt, can’t stand managing endpoints, and don’t want to be burdened with the basics of it. What they really need is a partner that is an extension of their Tech staff so they can focus on growing their own business.
During (and after) the pandemic Evolve IP went use-case-focused. They wrapped all of their products together in a virtual workspace delivering multiple legacy applications. Plus, they went deep with their Teams integrations to handle the communications needs of the enterprise and put Contact Center inside their DaaS offering.
I wanted to call this out as it may give you a different way to think about how you’re acquiring and buying technology.
Moving Offices During a Pandemic and Forced Work From Home
During our discussion, we commiserated about moving out of the office during the pandemic. At the time, we were working together at that time and we were moving offices. We literally packed up our boxes, put them in our trunks, and never came back to the office.
We talked about the challenges of service providers and technology companies during the digital transformation wave of the pandemic and forced work from home. I thought it was really interesting from a service provider perspective, but I think you’ll find that interesting even as an IT buyer or technology leader.
Digital Transformation is About Using the Tech You Already Have
Tim suggested that the real effort in digital transformation is about teaching Tech Leaders how to use what they already have, what they’ve already bought, but relying on someone else to make sure it’s available and integrated with the other applications they need to support the new hybrid workforce.
It’s an interesting point as we tend to think of digital transformation in terms of needing to acquire new technology.
Finally, we had a conversation about the difference between something being broken and user error, which is a fun and relatable topic for all of you IT leaders. Tim shares some valuable perspectives that make get you thinking differently about user adoption, tech and more.
You can listen to the whole episode on your favorite podcasting platform and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.
ABOUT TIM ALLEN
Tim is a 30-year veteran of the communications and “as a Service” space spending 90% of that time growing two companies from the start-up phase to $100M in revenue. He loves helping organizations use technology to change their business, spending time with his wife of 25 years and watching his four kids play sports.
CONTACT TIM
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