The POA Story: How Datto Is Filling the Gaps in Client Protection
Founded in 1976 in Portland, Oregon, Pacific Office Automation (POA) stands as a revered pioneer in office management solutions. Over the years, POA has grown from a single office to 35 locations throughout the U.S. Today, the company provides an extensive array of managed and white-glove IT services for SMBs as well as Fortune 500 companies.
- Company: Pacific Office Automation
- Industry: MSP
- Location: Beaverton, Oregon
- Established: 1976
- Interviewed: Chris Miller, Vice President of IT Sales and Solutions at POA
“The Datto team has been equally incredible as well. Our partnership with Datto is one of the strongest of all our partners that we have.”
Vice President of IT Sales and Solutions at POA
POA has been a Datto partner since 2014, leveraging diverse Datto solutions, especially across its business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) portfolio, including Datto SIRIS, Datto SaaS Protection + and Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure.
Chris Miller, Vice President of IT Sales and Solutions at POA, states that the single pane of glass that Datto offers for data backup and disaster recovery makes it unique from other vendors in the space. “We want to deliver our customers the best customer experience they could get — and Datto provides exactly that with its single pane of glass across different backup solutions,” says Miller.
Datto has been supporting POA to deliver comprehensive data protection for its clients. For instance, Datto Backup for Microsoft Azure has been instrumental in helping POA completely secure their customers’ Azure workloads. “Microsoft doesn’t provide the level of native protection that most of our customers think they’re getting, and Datto has played a significant role in filling those gaps and adding that extra layer of protection,” notes Miller. “That has, in turn, helped us boost our customer value since our clients are now 100% confident that they can quickly return to business as usual in the event of a disaster,” he adds.
Underlining the solid partnership, POA is adding more products under the Kaseya umbrella to its portfolio. The company has now onboarded myITprocess, a robust solution that can take quarterly business reviews and customer relationships to the next level.
Miller recalls a story that resonates in his mind when thinking about the partnership with Datto. “We had a customer who wanted to discontinue her monthly spend on Datto Backup even after we kept selling her on the value,” recollects Miller. Then, one day, her business got hit with a ransomware attack.
“Fortunately, we had a demo out there since we wanted to demonstrate its value. That day, if we didn’t have Datto out there, it would have been catastrophic to her business. If I ever have a customer that says they don’t want Datto Backup, all I have to do is give them her number, and she would sell it for us like no other,” states Miller.
“Datto BCDR is plug-and-play. I was able to help CATG set it up remotely. I was able to go to them and say, ‘I know I am not there with you on-site, but we can set this up remotely.’ We registered the device, got it online, integrated with vCenter and got the data backed up,” says Robert Thurston, Chief Operating Officer, Vicinity.
About 90% of POA’s managed customers leverage Datto Backup solutions today. “As we continue to advance, grow and deliver unmatched customer experience, having Datto in the corner is a boon,” Miller concludes.